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4 -7*^, 







A HERO AND SOME 
OTHER FOLK 



BY 
WILLIAM A, QUAYLE 

Autho* of "THE POET'S POET AND OTHER ESSAYS" 



THIRD EDITION 



CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE 
NEW YORKs EATON & MAINS 



85310 



f — ■ — ■ 

Library of Congreaa 

^m> Copies Received 
DEC 7 1900 

(-/■ Copyright enWy 

SECOND €OPY 

Oelivafed to 

ORDER DIVISION 

DEC 8 19UU 



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COPYRIGHT, igoo, BY 
THE WESTERN METH- 
ODIST BOOK CONCERN 



"1^0 think some one will care to listen to us, and to be- 
lieve we do not speak to vacant air but to listening 
hearts, is always sweet. TTiat friends have listened to 
this author' s spoken and written words with apparent 
gladness emboldens him to believe they will give him hear- 
ing once again. 

May some one's eyes be lightened, some one' s burden 
be lifted from his shoulders for an hour of rest, some 
one'' s landscape grow larger, fairer, and more fruitful, 
because these essays have been written. 

William A. Quayle. 



Contents 

PAGE. 

I. Jean Valjean, , 7 

II. Some Words on Loving Shakespeare, 48 

III. Caliban, 75 

IV. William the Silent, 93 

V. The Romance of American Geography, .... 142 

VI. Iconoclasm in Nineteenth-century Literature, i8r 

VII. Tennyson the Dreamer, 198 

VIII. The American Historians, 241 

IX. King Arthur, 262 

X. The Story of the Pictures, 292 

XI. The Gentleman in Literature, 299 

XII. The Drama of Job o ..... . 329 



A Hero and Some Other 
Folk 

% 



Jean Valjean 

THE hero is not a luxury, but a necessity. 
We can no more do without him than we 
can do without the sky. Every best man and 
woman is at heart a hero-worshiper. Emerson 
acutely remarks that all men admire Napoleon 
because he was themselves in possibility. They 
were in miniature what he was developed. For 
a like though nobler reason, all men love heroes. 
They are ourselves grown tall, puissant, victorious, 
and sprung into nobility, worth, service. The hero 
electrifies the world ; he is the lightning of the soul, 
illuminating our sky_, clarifying the air, making it 
thereby salubrious and delightful. What any elect 
spirit did, inures to the credit of us all. A frag- 

7 



8 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 

ment of Lowell's clarion verse may stand for the 
biography of heroism : 

"When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad 

earth's aching breast 
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east 

to west; 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within 

him climb 
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime 
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem 

of Time;" 

such being the undeniable result and history of 
any heroic service. 

But the world's hero has changed. The old 
hero was Ulysses, or Achilles, or ^neas. The 
hero of Greek literature is Ulysses, as -^neas is 
in Latin literature. But to our modern thought 
these heroes miss of being heroic. We have out- 
grown them as we have outgrown dolls and mar- 
bles. To be frank, we do not admire ^neas nor 
Ulysses, ^neas wept too often and too co- 
piously. He impresses us as a big cry-baby. Of 
this trinity of classic heroes — Ulysses, ^neas, and 
Achilles — Ulysses is least obnoxious. This state- 
ment is cold and unsatisfactory, and apparently 
unappreciative, but it is candid and just. Lodge, in 
his "Some Accepted Heroes," has done service 
in rubbing the gilding from Achilles, and show- 
ing that he was gaudy and cheap. We thought 



J:eAN Vai,je;an 9 

the image was gold, which was, in fact, thin gilt. 
Achilles stilks in his tent, while Greek armies are 
thrown back defeated from the Trojan gates. In 
nothing is he admirable save that, when his pout- 
ing fit is over and when he rushes into the battle, 
he has mighty and overbears the force opposing 
him as a wave does some petty obstacle. But no 
higher quality shines in his conquest. He is vain, 
brutal, and impervious to high motive. In 
^neas one can find little attractive save his filial 
regard. He bears Anchises on his shoulders from 
toppling Troy ; but his wanderings constitute an 
Odyssey of commonplaces, or chance, or mean- 
ness. No one can doubt Virgil meant to create 
a hero of commanding proportions, though we, 
looking at him from this far remove, find him 
uninteresting, unheroic, and vulgar; and why the 
goddess should put herself out to allay tempests 
in his behalf, or why hostile deities should be dis- 
turbed to tumble seas into turbulence for such a 
voyager, is a query. He merits neither their 
wrath nor their courtesy. I confess to liking 
heroes of the old Norse mythology better. 
They, at least, did not cry nor grow voluble with 
words when obstacles obstructed the march. 
They possess the merit of tremendous action, 
^neas, in this regard, is the inferior of Achilles. 
Excuse us from hero worship, if ^neas be 
hero. In this old company of heroes, Ulysses is 



lo A Hero and Some; Othbr Foi,k 

easy superior. Yet the catalogue of his virtues 
is an easy task. Achilles was a huge body^ asso- 
ciated with little brain, and had no symptom of 
sagacity. In this regard, Ulysses outranks him, 
and commands our respect. He has diplomacy 
and finesse. He is not simply a huge frame, 
wrestling men down because his bulk surpasses 
theirs. He has a thrifty mind. He is the man 
for councils of war, fitted to direct with easy 
mastery of superior acumen. His fellow-warriors 
called him "crafty," because he was brainy. He 
was schooled in stratagem, by which he became 
author of Ilium's overthrow. Ulysses was shrewd, 
brave, balanced — possibly, though not conclusively, 
patriotic — a sort of Louis XI, so far as we may form 
an estimate, but no more. He was selfish^ immoral, 
barren of finer instincts, who was loved by his 
dog and by Penelope, though for no reason we 
can discover. Ten years he fought before Troy, 
and ten years he tasted the irony of the seas — in 
these episodes displaying bravery and fortitude, but 
no homesick love for Penelope, who waited at the 
tower of Ithaca for him, a picture of constancy 
sweet enough to hang on the palace walls of all 
these centuries. We do not think to love Ulysses, 
nor can we work ourselves up to the point of ad- 
miration; and he is the best hero classic Rome 
and Greece can ofifer. No ! 'Register, as the mod- 
ern sense of the classic hero, we do not like him. 



J:ean Vai^jean ii 

He is not admirable, yet is not totally lacking 
in power to command attention. What is his 
quality of appeal to us ? This : He is action ; and 
action thrills us. The old hero was, in general, 
brave and brilliant. He had the tornado's 
movement. His onset redeems him. He blus- 
tered, was spectacular, heartless, and did not guess 
the meaning of purity; but he was warrior, and 
the world enjoys soldiers. And this- motley hero 
has been attempted in our own days. He was 
archaic, but certain have attempted to make him 
modern. Byron's Don Juan is the old hero, only 
lost to the old hero's courage. He is a villain, with 
not sense enough to understand he is unattractive. 
He is a libertine at large, who thinks himself a 
gentleman. Don Juan is as immoral, impervious 
to honor, and as villainous as the Greek gods. The 
D'Artagnan romances have attempted the old 
hero's resuscitation. The movement of the 
"Three Musketeers" is mechanical rather than 
human. D'Artagnan's honor is limited to his 
fealty to his king. He has no more sense of deli- 
cacy toward women, or honor for them as women, 
than Achilles had. Some of his doings are too 
defamatory to be thought of, much less men- 
tioned. No! Excuse me from D'Artagnan and 
the rest of Dumas' heroes. They may be 
French, but they are not heroic. About Dumas' 
romances there is a gallop which, with the un- 



?r=T===nit3'. 



12 A Hs;ro and Some) Othkr Foi<e 

wary, passes for action and art. But. he has not, 
of his own motion, conceived a single woman who 
was not seduced or seducible, nor a single man 
who was not a libertine; for "The Son of 
Porthros" and his bride are not of Dumas' cre- 
ation. He is not open to the charge of having 
drawn the picture of one pure man or woman. 
Zola is the natural goal of Dumas ; and we enjoy 
neither the route nor the terminus. Louis XIV, 
Charles II, and George IV are modeled after the 
old licentious pretense at manhood, but we may 
all rejoice that they deceive nobody now. Our 
civilization has 'outgrown them, and will not, even 
in second childhood, take to such playthings. 

But what was the old hero's chief failure? 
The answer is, He lacked conscience. Duty had 
no part in his scheme of action, nor in his vo- 
cabulary of word or thought. Our word "virtue" 
is the bodily importation of the old Roman word 
"virtus," but so changed in meaning that the 
Romans could no more comprehend it than they 
could the Copernican theory of astronomy. 
With them, "virtus" meant strength — that only — 
a battle term. The solitary application was to 
fortitude in conflict. With us, virtue is shot 
through and through with moral quality^ as a gem 
is shot through with light, and monopolizes the 
term as light monopolizes the gem. This change 
is radical and astonishing, but discloses a change 



Je)an VAi.j:eAN J 3 

which has revolutionized the world. The old hero 
was conscienceless — a characteristic apparent in 
Greek civilization. What Greek patriot, whether 
Themistocles or Demosthenes, applied conscience 
to patriotism? They were as devoid of practical 
conscience as a Metope of the Parthenon was de- 
void of life. Patriotism was a transient sentiment. 
Demosthenes could become dumb in the presence 
of Philip's gold; and in a fit of pique over mis- 
treatment at the hands of his brother-citizens, 
Themistocles became a traitor, and, expatriated, 
dwelt a guest at the Persian court. Strangely 
enough — and it is passing strange — the most 
heroic personality in Homer's Iliad, the Greek's 
"Bible of heroisms," was not the Atridse, whether 
Agamemnon or Menelaus ; not Ajax nor Achilles, 
nor yet Ulysses; but was Hector, the Trojan, who 
appears to greater advantage as hero than all the 
Grecian host. And Homer was a Greek! This 
is strange and unaccountable irony. Say once 
more, the old hero's lack was conscience. He, 
like his gods and goddesses, who were deified in- 
famies, was a studied impurity. Jean Valjean is 
a hero, but a hero of a new type. 

Literature is a sure index of a civilization. 
Who cares to settle in his mind whether the world 
grows better, may do so by comparing contem- 
poraneous literature with the reading of other 
days. "The Heptameron," of Margaret of Na- 



14 A Hero and Some Other Folk 

varre, is a book so filthy as to be nauseating. 
That people could read it from inclination is un- 
thinkable; and to believe that a woman could read 
it, much less write it, taxes too sorely our credu- 
lity. In truth, this work did not, in the days of 
its origin, shock the people's sensibilities. A 
woman wrote it, and she a sister of Francis I of 
France, and herself Queen of Navarre, and a pure 
woman. And her contemporaries, both men and 
women, read it with delight, because they had 
parted com.pany with blushes and modesty. Zola 
is less voluptuous and filthy than these old tales. 
Some things even Zola curtains. Margaret of Na- 
varre tears the garments from the bodies of men 
and women, and looks at their nude sensuality 
smilingly. Of Boccaccio's "Decameron," the same 
general observations hold ; save that they are less 
filthy, though no less sensual. In the era pro- 
ducing these tales, witness this fact : The stories 
are represented as told by a company of gentle- 
men and ladies, the reciter being sometimes a 
man, sometimes a woman; the place, a country 
villa, whither they had fled to escape a plague then 
raging in Florence. The people, so solacing them- 
selves in retreat from a plague they should have 
striven to alleviate by their presence and minis- 
tries, were the gentility of those days, representing 
the better order of society, and told stories which 
would now be venal if told by vulgar men in some 



Jean Vai^jean 15 

tavern of ill-repute. That Boccaccio should have 
reported these tales as emanating from such a 
company is proof positive of the immodesty of 
those days, whose story is rehearsed in the 
"Decameron." Rousseau's "Confessions" is an- 
other book showing the absence of current mo- 
rality in his age. Notwithstanding George Eliot's 
panegyric, these memoirs are the production of 
unlimited conceit, of a practical absence of any 
moral sensitiveness ; and while Rousseau could not 
be accused of being sensual, nor amorous and 
heartless as Goethe, he yet shows so crude a moral 
state as to render him unwholesome to any per- 
son of ordinary morals in the present day. His 
"Confessions," instead of being naive, strike me 
as being distinctly and continuously coarse. A 
man and woman who could give their children 
deliberately to be farmed out, deserting them as 
an animal would not, and this with no sense of 
loss or compunction, nor even with a sense of 
the inhumanity of such procedure — such a man 
and woman tell us how free-love can degrade a 
natively virtuous mind. Such was Rousseau; and 
his "Confessions" are like himself, unblushing, be- 
cause shameless. These books reflect their re- 
spective ages, and are happily obsolete now. 
Such memoirs and fictions in our day are unthink- 
able as emanating from respectable sources; and 
if written would be located in vile haunts in the 



1 6 A H:^RO AND Some; Other Foi,k 

purlieus of civilization. Gauged by such a test, 
the world is seen to be better, and immensely bet- 
ter. We have sailed out of sight of the old con- 
tinent of coarse thinking, and are sailing a sea 
where purity of thought and expression impreg- 
nate the air like odors. The old hero, with his 
lewdness and rhodomontade, is excused from the 
stage. We have had enough of him. Even Cyrano 
de Bergerac is so out of keeping with the new 
notion of the heroic, that the translator of the 
drama must apologize for his hero's swagger. 
We love his worth, though despising his theatrical 
air and acts. We are done with the actor, and 
want the man. And this new hero is proof of a 
new life in the soul, and, therefore, more welcome 
than the glad surprise of the first meadow-lark's 
song upon the brown meadows of the early spring. 
A reader need not be profound, but may 
be superficial, and yet discover that Jean Valjean 
is fashioned after the likeness of Jesus. Michael 
Angelo did not more certainly model the dome of 
St. Peter's after Brunelleschi's dome of the 
Duomo than Hugo has modeled his Valjean 
after Christ. We are not necessarily aware of our- 
selves, nor of our era, until something discovers 
both to us, as we do not certainly know sea air 
when we feel it. I doubt if most men would rec- 
ognize the tonic of sea air if they did not know 
the sea was neighbor to them. We sight the 



J:eAN Vai,je;an 17 

ocean, and then know the air is flooded with a 
health as ample as the seas from which it blows. 
So we can not know our intellectual air is saturated 
with Christ, because we can not go back. We 
lack contemporaneous material for contrast. We 
are, ourselves, a part of the age, as of a moving 
ship, and can not see its motion. We can not 
realize the world's yesterdays. We know them, 
but do not comprehend them, since between ap- 
prehending and comprehending an epoch lie such 
wide spaces, "Quo Vadis" has done good in that 
it has popularized a realization of that turpitude 
of condition into which Christianity stepped at the 
morning of its career; for no lazar-house is so 
vile as the Roman civilization when Christianity 
began — God's angel — to trouble that cursed pool. 
Christ has come into this world's affairs unher- 
alded, as the morning does not come ; for who 
watches the eastern lattices can see the morning 
star, and know the dawn is near. Christ has 
slipped upon the world as a tide slips up the 
shores, unnoted, in the night; and because we 
did not see him come, did not hear his advent, his 
presence is not apparent. Nothing is so big with 
joy to Christian thought as the absolute omnipres- 
ence of the Christ in the world's life. Stars light 
their torches in the sky; and the sky is wider and 
higher than the stars. Christ is such a sky to 
modern civilization. 



i8 A Hero and Some; Othe;r Foi<e 

Plainly, Jean Valjean is meant for a hero. 
Victor Hugo loves heroes, and has skill and in- 
clination to create them. His books are biog- 
raphies of heroism of one type or another. No 
book of his is heroless. In this attitude he dif- 
fers entirely from Thackeray and Hawthorne, 
neither of whom is particularly enamored of 
heroes. Hawthorne's romances have not, in the 
accepted sense, a single hero. He does not at- 
tempt building a character of central worth. He 
is writing a drama, not constructing a hero. In 
a less degree, this is true of Thackeray. He truly 
loves the heroic, and on occasion depicts it. 
Henry Esmond and Colonel Newcome are 
mighty men of worth, but are exceptions to 
Thackeray's method. He pokes fun at them even. 
"Vanity Fair" he terms a novel without a hero. 
He photographs a procession. "The Virginians" 
contains no character which can aspire to cen- 
trality, much less might. He, loving heroes, at- 
tempts concealing his passion, and, if accused of 
it, denies the accusation. After reading all his 
writings, no one could for a moment claim that 
Thackeray was the biographer of heroes. He is 
a biographer of . meanness, and times, and sham 
aristocracy and folks, and can, when he cares to 
do so, portray heroism lofty as tallest mountains. 
With Hugo all is different.. He will do nothing 
else than dream and depict heroism and heroes-. 



Jean Valjkan 19 

He loves them with a passion fervent as desert 
heats. His pages are ablaze with them. Some- 
body lifting up the face, and facing God in some 
mood or moment of briefer or longer duration — 
this is Hugo's method. In "Toilers of the Sea," 
Galliatt, by almost superhuman effort, and phys- 
ical endurance and fortitude and fertility in 
resource^ defeats octopus and winds and rocks and 
seas, and in lonely triumph pilots the wreck home — 
and all of this struggle and conquest for love! 
He is a somber hero, but a hero still, with 
strength like the strength of ten, since his love 
is as the love of a legion. -The power to do is 
his, and the nobility to surrender the woman of 
his love; and there his nobility darkens into 
stoicism, and he waits for the rising tide, watch- 
ing the outgoing ship that bears his heart away 
unreservedly — waits, only eager that the tide 
ingulf him. 

In "Ninety-Three," the mother of the children 
in the burning tower is heroine. In "By Order 
of the King," Dea is heroic, and spotless as 
"Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat;" and Ursus, a 
vagabond, is fatherhood in its sweet nobleness; 
and Gwynplaine, disfigured and deserted — a little 
lad set ashore upon a night of hurricane and 
snow, who, finding in his wanderings a babe on 
her dead mother's breast, rescues this bit of 
winter storm-drift, plodding on through un- 



20 A He;ro and Some; Other Foi,e 

tracked snows, freezing, but no more thinking to 
drop his burden than the mother thought to de- 
sert it — Gwynplaine is a hero for whose deed an 
epic is fitting. Quasimodo, the hunchback of 
Notre Dame, found, after long years, holding in 
his skeleton arms a bit of woman's drapery and 
a woman's skeleton — Quasimodo, hideous, her- 
culean, hungry-hearted, tender, a hunchback, yet 
a lover and a man — who denies to Quasimodo 
a hero's laurels? In "Les Miserables" are heroes 
not a few. Gavroche, that green leaf blown about 
Paris streets; Fantine, the mother; Eponine, the 
lover; Bishop Bienvenu, the Christian; Jean Val- 
jean, the man, — all are heroic folk. Our hearts 
throb as we look at them. Gavroche, the lad, 
dances by as though blown past by the gale. 
Fantine, shorn of her locks of gold; Fantine, with 
her bloody lips, because her teeth have been sold 
to purchase medicine for her sick child — 'her 
child, yet a child of shame ; Fantine, her mother's 
love omnipotent, lying white, wasted, dying, 
expectantly looking toward the door, with her 
heart beating hke a wild bird, beating with its 
wings against cage-bars, anxious for escape; 
Fantine, watching for her child Cossette, watch- 
ing in vain, but watching; Fantine, dying, glad 
because Monsieur Madeleine has promised he will 
care for Cossette as if the babe were his ; Fantine, 
dead, with her face turned toward the door, look- 



Jean Valjkan 21 

ing in death for the coming of her child, — Fantine 
affects us Hke tears and sobbing set to music. 
Look at her; for a heroine is dead. And Eponine, 
with the gray dawn of death whitening her 
cheeks and gasping, "If — when — if when," now 
silent, for she is choked by the rush of blood 
and stayed from speech by fierce stabs of pain, 
but continuing, "When I am dead — a favor — a 
favor, Monsieur Marius [silence once again to 
wrestle with the throes of death] — a favor — a favor 
when I am dead [nov^^ her speech runs like fright- 
ened feet], if you will kiss me ; for indeed. Monsieur 
Marius, I think I loved you a little — I — I shall 
feel — your kiss— in death." Lie quiet in the dark- 
ening night, Eponine ! Would you might have a 
queen's funeral, since you have shown anew the 
moving miracle of woman's love ! 

Bishop Bienvenu is Hugo's hero as saint; and 
we can not deny him beauty such as those "en- 
skied and sainted" wear. This is the romancist's 
tribute to a minister of God ; and sweet the tribute 
is. With not a few, the bishop is chief hero, 
next to Jean Valjean. He is redemptive, like the 
purchase money of a slave. He is quixotic; he is 
not balanced always, nor always wise; but he falls 
on the side of Christianity and tenderness and 
goodness and love — a good way to fall, if one is 
to fall at all. We love the bishop, and can not 
help it. He was good to the poor, tender to the 



22 A He;ro and Somb Other Folk 

erring, illuminative to those who were in the 
moral dark, and came over people like a sunrise; 
crept into their hearts for good, as a child creeps 
up into its father's arms, and nestles there like 
a bird. Surely we love the bishop. He is a hero 
saint. To be near him was to be neighborly with 
heaven. He was ever minding people of God. 
Is there any such office in earth or heaven? To 
look at this bishop always puts our heart in the 
mood of prayer, and what helps us to prayer is 
a celestial benefit. The pertinent fact in him is, 
that he is not greatness, but goodness. We do 
not think of greatness when we see him or hear 
him, but we think with our hearts when he is before 
our eyes. Goodness is more marketable than 
greatness, and more necessary. Goodness, great- 
ness ! Brilliancy is a cheap commodity when put 
on the counter beside goodness ; and Bishop Bien- 
venu is a romancer's apotheosis of goodness, and 
we bless him for this deification. 

The bishop was merchantman, freighting ships. 
His wharves are wide, his fleet is great, his car- 
goes are many. Only he is freighting ships for 
heaven. No bales of merchandise nor ingots of 
iron, but souls for whom Christ died, — these are 
his cargoes; and had you asked him, "What 
work to-day?" a smile had flooded sunlight 
along his face while he said, "Freighting souls 
with God to-day, and lading cargoes for the 



Jean Vai^jean 23 

skies." This is royal merchandise. The Doge 
of Venice annually flung a ring into the sea as 
sign of Venice's nuptials with the Adriatic; but 
Bishop Bienvenu each day wedded himself and 
the world to heaven, and he comes 

"O'er my ear like the sweet south, 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odor." 

Hugo paints with sunset tints and with light- 
ning's lurid light ; his contrasts are fierce, his 
backgrounds are often as black as a rain-cloud. 
He paints with the mad rush of a Turner. He 
is fierce in hates and loves. He does nothing by 
moderation. Calmness does not belong to him. 
He is tempestuous always ; but tempests are mag- 
nificent and purifying to the air. Hugo is paint- 
ing, and painting heroes, and his hero of heroes 
is Valjean. Jean Valjean is conscience. In Mac- 
beth, conscience is warring and retributive. In 
Richard HI, conscience, stifled in waking, speaks 
in dreams, and is menace, Hke a sword swung by 
a maniac's hands. In Arthur Dim'mesdale, con- 
science is lacerative. In Jean Valjean, conscience 
is regulative, creative, constructive, Jean Val- 
jean is conscience, and conscience is king. What 
the classic heroes lacked, Jean Valjean possesses. 

The setting of this character is entirely mod- 
ern. "Les Miserables" is a story of the city and 



24 A Hkro and Some; O'Thkr Folk, ; 

of poverty, and can not be dissociated from them 
by any wrench of thought, however violent. 
Not that urban Hfe or poverty are new elements 
in the school of suffering. They are not new, 
as pain is not new. This is the difference. In 
the old ages, the city and poverty were taken as 
matters of course. Comfort was not a classic 
consideration. The being alive to conditions, 
sensitive to suffering, eager for diminution of the 
world's woes, is a modern thought, a Christ 
thought. Sociology is an application of Christ's 
teaching. He founded this science. Rome was 
the monster city of the empire, and possibly the 
monster city of ancient geography, and con- 
tained approximately, at its most populous pe- 
riod, two and one half millions of inhabitants. 
Man is gregarious as the flocks ; he seems to fear 
solitude, and flees what he fears. Certain we are 
that in America, one hundred years ago, less than 
one-thirtieth of the population was in cities ; now, 
about one-third is in city communities; and 
European cities are outgrowing American cities. 
In other words, at the present time, cities are 
growing in a ratio totally disproportionate to the 
growth of population ; and this, not in the New 
World simply, but in the Old. Ivondon has nearly 
as many citizens as England had in the time of 
the Puritan Revolution. Men are nucleating in 
a fashion foreboding, but certain. A symptom of 



Ji^AN Vai,je;an 25 

the city life is, that he who is city bred knows 
no life apart from his city. He belongs to it as 
essentially as the Venetian belonged to Venice. 
The community is a veritable part of the man's 
self. Note this in Jean Valjean. It never occurs 
to him to leave Paris. Had he been a tree rooted 
in the soil along the Seine, he had not been more 
stationary. Men live, suffer, die, and hug their 
ugly tenements as parasites of these dilapidations, 
and draw their life-saps from such a decayed 
trunk. This human instinct for association is 
mighty in its impulsion. Not a few, but mul- 
titudes, prefer to be hungry and cold and live 
in a city to living with' abundance of food 
and raiment in the country. Any one can see 
this at his alley or in his neighboring street. 
It is one of the latent insanities of the soul. 
The city is a live wire, and will not let go of 
him who grasps it. There is a stream of life pour- 
ing into cities, but no stream flowing into the 
country. The tide runs up the shore and back 
into the deep seas; not so these human tides. 
They pour into the Dead Sea basin of the urban 
community. Jean Valjean was a complete mod- 
ern in his indissoluble identification with the city. 
As a matter of course, his was the criminal in- 
stinct, superadded to the gregarious instinct, 
which bides in a city labyrinth rather than the 
forests of the Amazon. Yet, taken all in all, he 



26 A Hkro and Somk Othe;r FoIvK 

evidently is a thorough modern in his urban in- 
stinct. The world was big, and he had gold for 
passage across seas; and there he had, in reason, 
found entire safety; but such a thought never 
entered his mind. Paris was the only sea he 
knew; here his plans for escape and plans for life 
clung tenaciously as a dead man's hand. 

The second element of background for Jean 
Valjean is poverty. The people of this drama are 
named "the miserable ones." And poverty is 
modern and a modern question. All socialists, 
anarchists, and communists talk of poverty; this is 
their one theme. Superficial social reformers make 
poverty responsible for the total turpitude of men. 
Men are poor, hence criminal. Jean Valjean is 
poor — miserably poor; sees his sister's children 
hungry, and commits crime, is a thief; becomes 
a galley slave as punitive result. Ergo, poverty 
was the cause of crime, and poverty, and not Val- 
jean, must be indicted ; so runs the argument. 
This conclusion we deny. Let us consider. 
Poverty is not unwholesome. The bulk of men 
are poor, and always have been. Poverty is no 
new condition. Man's history is not one of af- 
fluence, but one of indigence. This is a patent 
fact. But a state of lack is not unwholesome, but 
on the contrary does great good. Poverty has sup- 
plied the world with most of the kings it boasts of. 
Palaces have not cradled the kings of thought, 



service, and achievement. What greatest poet had 
luxury for a father? Name one. Poverty is the 
mother of kings. Who censures poverty censures 
the home from whose doors have passed the most 
illustrious of the sons of men. Christ's was a 
poverty so keen and so parsimonious that Occi- 
dentals can not picture it. More, current social 
reformers assume that the poor are unhappy; 
though if such reformers would cease dreaming, 
and learn seeing, they would reverse their creed. 
Riches do not command joy; for joy is not a 
spring rising from the depths where gold is 
found and gems gathered. Most men are poor, 
and most men are happy, or, if they are not, they 
may trace their sadness to sources other than lack 
of wealth. The best riches are the gifts of God, 
and can not be shut off by any sluicing; the 
choicest riches of the soul, such as knowledge and 
usefulness and love and God, are not subject to 
the tariff of gold. Poverty, we conclude, is not 
in itself grievous. Indeed, there are in poverty 
blessings which many of us know, and from 
which we would not be separated without keen 
regret. But penury is hard. When poverty 
pinches like winter's night, when fuel fails, and 
hunger is our company, then poverty becomes 
harsh and unpalatable, and not to be boasted of; 
though even penury has spurred many a sluggish 
life to conquering moods. When a man lies with 



28 A He;ro and Some Othkr Foi.k,v 

his face to the wall, paralytic, helpless, useless, a 
burden to himself and others, and hears the rub 
of his wife washing for a livelihood — and he loves 
her so ; took her to his home in her fair girlhood, 
when her beauty bloomed like a garden of roses, 
and pro'mised to keep her, and now she works 
for him all day and into the dark night, and loves 
to; but he turns his face to the wall, puts his one 
movable hand against his face, sobs so that his 
tears wash through his fingers and wet his pillow 
as with driving rain, — ^then poverty is pitiful. Or, 
when one sees his children hungry, tattered, with 
lean faces and eyes staring as with constant fear; 
sees them huddling under rags or cowering at a 
flicker meant for flame, — then poverty is hard ; and 
then, "The poor always ye have with you," said 
our Christ, which remember and be pitiful! 

But such penury, even^ does not require crime. 
Valjean became a criminal from poverty; but him- 
self felt now, as the days slipped from his life-store, 
that crime was not necessary. Theft is bad econom- 
ics. The criminals on the dockets are not those 
pinched with poverty, as one may assure himself 
if he gives heed to criminal dockets. People pre- 
fer crime as a method of livelihood. These are 
criminals. The "artful dodger," in "Oliver 
Twist," is a picture of the average criminal. 
Honest poverty need not steal. In the writer's 
own city, the other day, a man accused of theft 



Jean Vai^jkan 29 

pleaded his children's poverty as palliative of his 
crime; but in that city was abundant help for 
worthy poverty. That man lacked an absolute 
honesty. He and his could have been fed and 
clothed, and himself maintained his manly dignity 
and uncorrupted honesty. To blame society with 
criminality is a current method, but untrue and 
unwise; for thus we will multiply, not decimate^ 
criminals. The honest man may be in penury; 
but he will have help, and need not shelter in a 
jail. Thus, then, these two items of modernity 
paint background for Jean Valj can's portrait; and 
in Jean Valjean, To-day has found a voice. 

This man is a criminal and a galley slave, with 
yellow passport — his name, Jean Valjean. Hear 
his story. An. orphan; a half-sullen lad^ reared 
by his sister; sees her husband dead on a bed of 
rags, with seven orphans clinging in sobs to the 
dead hands. Jean Valjean labors to feed this mot- 
ley company; denies himself bread, so that he 
may slip food into their hands ; has moods of 
stalwart heroism ; and never having had a sweet- 
heart — pity him ! — toils on, hopeless, under a sky 
robbed of blue and stars ; leading a life plainly, 
wholly exceptional, and out of work in a winter 
when he was a trifle past twenty-six; hears his sis- 
ter's children crying, "Bread, bread, give bread;" 
rises in sullen acerbity ; ^ smites his huge fist 
through a baker's window, and steals a loaf; is 



30 A Hkro and Some) Othbr Folk 

arrested, convicted, sent to the galleys, and herded 
with galley slaves ; attempts repeated escapes, is 
retaken, and at the age of forty-six shambles out 
of his galley slavery with a yellow passport, certi- 
fying this is "a very dangerous man ;" and with 
a heart on which brooding has written with its 
biting stylus the story of what he believes to be 
his wrongs, Jean Valjean, bitter as gall against 
society^ has his hands ready, aye, eager, to strike, 
no matter whom. Looked at askance, turned from 
the hostel, denied courtesy, food, and shelter, the 
criminal in him rushes to the ascendant, and he 
thrusts the door of the bishop's house open. Lis- 
ten, he is speaking now, look at him ! The bishop 
deals with him tenderly, as a Christian ought ; senti- 
mentally, but scarcely wisely. He has sentimental- 
ity rather than sentiment in his kindness; he puts 
a premium on Jean Valjean becoming a criminal 
again. To assume everybody to be good, as some 
philanthropists do, is folly, being so transparently 
false. The good bishop — bless him for his good- 
ness! — who prays God daily not to lead him into 
temptation, why does he lead this sullen criminal 
into temptation? Reformatory methods should be 
sane. The bishop's methods were not sane. He 
meant well, but did not quite do well. Jean Val- 
jean, sleeping in a bed of comfort, grows restless, 
wakens, rises^ steals what is- accessible, flees, is 
arrested, brought back, is exonerated by the bish- 



JSAN VAI<JE)AN 31 

op's tenderness, goes out free ; steals from the little 
Savoyard, cries after the retreating lad to restore 
him his coin, fails to bring him back; fights with 
self, and with God's good help rises in the deep dark 
of night from the bishop's steps; walks out into 

a day of soul, trudges into the city of M , to 

which he finds admission, not by showing the 
criminal's yellow passport, but by the passport of 
heroism, having on entrance rescued a child from 
a burning building; becomes a citizen, invents a 
process of manufacturing jet, accum^ulates a for- 
tune, spends it lavishly in the bettering of the city 
where his riches were acquired; is benefactor to 
employee and city, and is called "Monsieur;" and 
after repeated refusals, becomes "Monsieur the 
Mayor;" gives himself up as a criminal to save 
a man unjustly accused, is returned to the galleys 
for the theft of the little Savoyard's forty-sous 
coin; by a heroic leap from the yardarm, escapes; 
seeks and finds Cossette^ devotes his life to shel- 
tering and loving her; runs his gauntlet of re- 
peated perils with Javert, grows steadily in hero- 
ism, and sturdy, invigorating manhood ; dies a 
hero and a saint, and an honor to human kind, — 
such is Jean Valjean's biography in meager out- 
line. But the moon, on a summer's evening, "a 
silver crescent gleaming 'mid the stars," appears 
hung on a silver cord of the full moon's rim; and, 
as the crescent moon is not the burnished silver 



32 A He;ro and Somk Other Foi.k ; 

of the complete circle, so no outline can include 
the white, bewildering light of this heroic soul. 
Jean Valjean is the biography of a redeemed life. 
The worst life contains the elements of redemp- 
tion, as words contain the possibility of poetry. 
He was a fallen, vicious, desperate man; and from 
so low a level, he and God conspired to lift him 
to the levels where the angels live, than which 
a resurrection from the dead is no more potent and 
blinding miracle. Instead of giving this book the 
caption, "J^^^^ Valjean/' it might be termed the 
"History of the Redemption of a Soul ;" and such a 
theme is worthy the study of this wide world of 
women and of men. 

Initial in this redemptive work was the good 
bishop, whose words, "Jean Valjean, my brother, 
you belong no longer to evil, but to good," never 
lost their music or might to Valjean's spirit. 
Some man or woman stands on everybody's road 
to God. And Jean Valjean, with the bishop's 
words sounding in his ears — voices that will not 
silence — goes out with his candlesticks, goes 
trembling out, and starts on his anabasis to a new 
life; wandered all day in the fields, inhaled the 
odors of a few late flowers, his childhood being 
thus recalled ; and when the sun was throwing 
mountain shadows behind hillocks and pebbles, as 
Jean Valjean sat and pondered in a dumb way, 
a Savoyard came singing on his way, tossing his 



Jean VAi,j:eA]sr 33 

bits of money in his hands ; drops a forty-sous 
piece near Jean Valjean, who, in a mood of in- 
exphcable evil, places his huge foot upon it, nor 
listened to the child's entreaty, "My piece, mon- 
sieur;" and eager and more eager grows a child 
whose little riches were invaded, "My piece, my 
white piece^ my silver ;" and in his voice are tears — 
and what can be more touching than a child's 
voice touched with tears? "My silver;" and the 
lad shook the giant by the collar of his blouse — 
"I want my silver, my forty-sous piece" — and be- 
gan to cry. A little lad a-sobbing! Jean Valjean, 
you who for so many years "have talked but little 
and never laughed;" Jean Valjean, pity the child; 
give him his coin. You were bought of the bishop 
for good. But in terrible voice he shouts : "Who 
is there? You here yet? You had better take 
care of yourself;" and the little lad runs, breath- 
less and sobbing. Jean Valjean hears his sobbing, 
but made no move for restitution until the little 
Savoyard has passed from sight and hearing, 
when, waking as from some stupor, he rises, 
cries wildly through the night, "Petit Gervais! 
Petit Gervais!" and listened, and — no answer. 
Then he ran, ran toward restitution. Too late ! too 
late! "Petit Gervais! Petit Gervais! Petit 
Gervais !" and, to a priest passing, "Monsieur, 
have you seen a child go by — a little fellow — Petit 
Gervais is his name?" And he calls him again 
3 



34 A Hero and Some; Other Foi.k 

through the empty night; and the lad hears him 
not. There is no response, and for the first time 
since he passed to the galleys, Jean Valjean's 
heart swells, and he bursts into tears; for he was 
horrified at himself. His hardness had mastered 
him, even when the bishop's tenderness had 
thawed his winter heart. Jean Valjean was now 
afraid of himself, which is where moral strength 
has genesis. He goes back — back where? No 
matter, wait. He sees in his thought — in his 
thought he sees the bishop, and wept, shed hot 
tears, wept bitterly, with more weakness than a 
woman, with more terror than a child, and his 
life seemed horrible; and he walks — whither? 
No matter. But, past midnight, the stage-driver 
saw, as he passed, a man in the attitude of prayer, 
kneeling upon the pavement in the shadow before 
the bishop's door; and should you have spoken, 
"Jean Valjean !" he would not have answered you. 
He would not have heard. He is starting on a 
pilgrimage of manhood toward God. He saw the 
bishop ; now he sees God, and here is hope ; for 
so is God the secret of all good and worth, a 
thing to be set down as the axiom of religion and 
life. A conscience long dormant is now become 
regnant. Jean Valjean is a man again! 

Goodness begets goodness. He climbed; and 
the mountain air and azure and fountains of clear 
waters, spouting from cliffs of snow and the far 



J^AN VAI.JEAN 35 

altitudes, fed his spirit. God and he kept com- 
pany, and, as is meet, goodness seemed native 
to him as Hly blooms to lily stems. God was his 
secret, as God is the secret of us all. To scan 
his process of recovery is worth while. The 
bishop reminded him of God. Goodness and love 
in man are wings to help us soar to where we 
see that service, love, and goodness are in God — ■ 
see that God is good and God is love. Seeing 
God, Jean Valjean does good. Philanthropy is 
native to him ; gentleness seems his birthright ; 
his voice is low and sweet; his face — the helpless 
look to it for help ; his eyes are dreamy, like a 
poet's ; he loves books ; he looks not manufac- 
turer so much as he looks poet; he passes good 
on as if it were coin to be handled; he suffers nor 
complains; his silence is wide, like that of the still 
night; he frequently walks alone and in the 
country; he becomes a god to Fantine, for she 
had spit upon him, and he had not resented ; he 
adopts means for the rescue of Cossette. In him, 
goodness moves finger from the lips, breaks 
silence, and becomes articulate. Jean Valjean is 
brave, magnanimous, of sensitive conscience, 
hungry-hearted, is possessed of the instincts of 
motherhood, bears being misjudged without com- 
plaint, is totally forgetful of himself, and is absolute 
in his loyalty to God — qualities which lift him into 
the elect life of manhood. 



36 A He:ro and SoM:e Other Foi^k 

Jean Valjean was brave. He and fear 
never met. The solitary fear he knew was fear 
of himself, and lest he might not live for good 
as the bishop had bidden him; but fear from 
without had never crossed his path. His was the 
bravery of conscience. His strength was pro- 
digious, and he scrupled not to use it. Self- 
sparing was no trait of his character. Like an- 
other hero we have read of, he would "gladly 
spend and be spent" for others, and bankrupt 
himself, if thereby he might make others rich. 
There is a physical courage, brilliant as a shock 
of armies, which feels the conflict and leaps to 
it as the storm-waves leap upon the sword edges 
of the clififs — ^a courage which counts no odds. 
There is another courage, moral rather than 
physical. Valjean possessed both, with moral 
courage in ascendency. He has the agility and 
strength sometimes found in criminals. He is 
now in the galleys for life. One day, while en- 
gaged in furling sail, a sailor has toppled from 
the yard; but in falling caught a rope, but hangs, 
swinging violently, like some mad pendulum. 
The height is dizzying. Death seems certain, 
when a convict, clad in red, and with a green cap, 
runs up for rescue, lets himself down alongside 
of the swaying sailor, now in the last extremity 
of weakness, and ready to drop like a winter leaf. 
Valjean (for it is he) oscillates violently to and 



Jean VaIvJEAn 37 

fro, while the throng below watch breathlessly. 
His peril is incredible, but his is a bravery which 
does not falter, and a skill which equals bravery. 
Valjean is swayed in the wind as the swaying 
sailor, until he catches him in his arm, makes 
him fast to the rope, clambers up, reaches the 
yard, hauls up the sailor, and carries him to a 
place of safety. And the throng below, breath- 
less till now, applauded and cried, "This man 
must be pardoned." Then it is that he, free once 
more, leaps down — falls from the dizzying 
height, the multitude thinks — leaps down into 
the seas, and wins liberty. Jean Valjean is 
heroic. His moral courage, which is courage at 
its noon, is discovered best in his rescue of 
Fauchelevent, old, and enemy — an enmity en- 
gendered by Madeleine's prosperity — to Monsieur 
Madeleine. The old man has fallen under his 
cart, and is being surely crushed to death. The 
mayor joins the crowd gathered about the unfor- 
tunate car-man ; offers a rising price for one who 
will go under the cart and rescue the old man. 
Javert is there — keen of eye and nostril as a 
vulture— and Jean Valjean is his prey. He be- 
lieves the mayor to be Jean Valjean, and, as 
the mayor urges some one to rescue the perishing 
man, says, with speech cold as breath from a 
glacier, "I have known but one man who was 
equal to this task, and he was a convict and in 



38 A Hkro and Some; Othkr Foi<k 

the galleys." The old man moans, "How it 
crushes me !" and, hearing that cry, under the 
cart the mayor crawls; and while those beside 
hold their breath, he, lying flat under the weight, 
lifts twice, ineffectually, and, with one herculean 
effort, lifts again, and the cart slowly rises^ and 
many willing hands helping from without, the old 
man is saved; and Monsieur Madeleine arises, 
pale, dripping with sweat, garments muddy and 
torn, while the old man whom he has rescued 
kisses his knees and calls him the good God. 
And the mayor looks at Javert with tranquil eye, 
though knowing full well that this act of generous 
courage in the rescue of an enemy has doomed 
himself. This is moral courage of celestial order. 

His magnanimity is certainly apparent, — in 
the rescue of his enemy, Fauchelevent ; in his 
release of his arch-enemy, Javert; in his presence 
within the barricade to protect Marius, who had, 
as a lover, robbed him of the one blossom that 
had bloomed in the garden of his heart, save only 
the passing bishop and the abiding God. No petti- 
ness is in him. He loves and serves after a fashion 
learned of Christ. If compelled to admire his 
courage, we are no less compelled to pay hom- 
age to his magnanimity. 

His was a hungry heart. Love he had never 
known ; he had never had a sweetheart. And now 
all pent-up love of a long life empties its precious 



Je!an VaIvJKAn 39 

ointment on the head of Cossette. He was all 
the mother she ever knew or needed to know. 
Heaven made her rich in such maternity as his. 
Mother instinct is in all good lives, and belongs 
to man. Maternity and paternity are met in the 
best manhood. The tenderness of motherhood 
must soften a man's touch to daintiness, like an 
evening wind's caress, before fatherhood is per- 
fect. All his youthhood, which knew not any 
woman's lips to kiss ; all his manhood, which had 
never shared a hearth with wife or child, — all this 
unused tenderness now administers to the wants 
of this orphan, Cossette. His rescue of her from 
the Thenardiers is poetry itself. He had the in- 
stincts of a gentleman. The. doll he brought her 
for her first Christmas gift was forerunner of a thou- 
sand gifts of courtesy and love. See, too, the mourn- 
ing garments he brought and laid beside her bed 
the first morning he brought her to his garret, 
and watched her slumber as if he had been ap- 
pointed by God to be her guardian angel. To 
him life henceforth meant Cossette. He was her 
servant always. For her he fought for his life as 
if it had been an unutterable good. He lost him- 
self, which is the very crown of motherhood's de- 
votion. He was himself supplanted in her affec- 
tions by her lover, Marius, and his heart was 
stabbed as if by poisoned daggers ; for was not 
Cossette wife, daughter, sister, brother, mother. 



40 A Hero and Some Other Foi,k 

father, friend — all? But if his heart was breaking, 
she never guessed it. He hid his hurt, though 
dying of heartbreak. 

Then, too, Jean Valjean is misjudged, and by 
those who should have trusted him as they 
trusted God. We find it hard to be patient with 
Marius, and are not patient with Cossette. Her 
selfishness is not to be condoned. Her contrition 
and her tears come too late. Though Valjean 
forgives her, we do not forgive her. She de- 
serves no forgiveness. Marius's honor was of the 
amateur order, lacking depth and breadth. He 
was superficial, judging by hearing rather than by 
eyes and heart. We have not patience to linger 
with his wife and him, but push past them to the 
hero spirit, whom they have not eyes to see nor 
hearts to understand. Jean Valjean misjudged, 
and by Marius and Cossette! Impossible! Javert 
may do that; Kantine, not knowing him, may do 
that, but once knowing him she had as lief dis- 
trusted day to bring the light as to have dis- 
trusted him. Misjudged, and by those he loved 
most, suffered for, more than died for! Poor 
Valjean! This wakes our pity and our tears. 
Before, we have watched him, and have felt the 
tug of battle on him ; now the mists fall, and we 
put our hands before our eyes and weep. This 
saint of God misjudged by those for whom he 
lives! Yet this is no solitary pathos. Were all 



Ji;an Vai^jean 41 

hearts' history known, we should know how many 
died misjudged. All Jean Valjean does has been 
misinterpreted. We distrust more and more cir- 
cumstantial evidence. It is hideous. No jury 
ought to convict a man on evidence of circum- 
stances. Too many tragedies have been enacted 
because of such. Marius thought he was discern- 
ing and of a sensitive honor. He thought it evi- 
dent that Jean Valjean had slain Javert, and had 
slain Monsieur Madeleine, whose fortune he has 
ofifered as Cossette's marriage portion. Poor 
Jean Valjean! You a murderer, a marauder — 
you! Marius acts with frigid honor. Valjean 
will not live with Marius and Cossette, being too 
sensitive therefor, perceiving himself distrusted 
by Marius, but comes to warm his hands and 
heart at the hearth of Cossette's presence; and he 
is stung when he sees no fire in the reception-'room. 
The omission he can not misinterpret. He goes 
again, and the chairs are removed. Marius may 
have honor, but his honor is cruel, like an inquisi- 
tor with rack and thumbscrew; and then Jean 
Valjean goes no more, but day by day suns his 
heart by going far enough to look at the house 
where Cossette is — no more; then his eyes are 
feverish to catch sight of her habitation as 
parched lips drink at desert springs. Misjudged! 
O, that is harder to bear than all his hurts! 

Then we will not say of Valjean, "He has 



42 A H:eRO AND Some Othe;r Foi.k 

conscience," but rather, we will say, "He is con- 
science." Valj can's struggle with conscience is 
one of the majestic chapters of the world's litera- 
ture, presenting, as it does, the worthiest and pro- 
foundest study of Christian conscience given by 
any dramatist since Christ opened a new chapter 
for conscience in the soul. Monsieur Madeleine, 
the mayor, is rich, respected, honored, is a savior 
of society, sought out by the king for political pre- 
ferment. One shadow tracks him like a night- 
mare. Javert is on his track, instinct serving him 
for reason. At last, Javert himself thinks Jean 
Valjean has been found ; for a man has been ar- 
rested, is to be tried, will doubtless be convicted, 
seeing evidence is damning. Now, Monsieur 

Madeleine, mayor of M , your fear is all but 

ended. An anodyne will be administered to your 
pain. Jean Valjean has known many a struggle. 
He thought his fiercest battles fought; but all his 
yesterdays of conflict are as play contests and 
sham battles matched with this. Honor, useful- 
ness, long years of service, love, guardianship of 
Cossette, and fealty to a promise given a dying 
mother — all beckon to him. He is theirs ; and 
has he not sufifered enough? More than enough. 
Let this man alone, that is all. Let him alone ! 
He sees it. Joy shouts in his heart, "Javert will 
leave me in quiet." "Let lis not interfere with 
God;" and his resolution is formed. But con- 



Je;an Valjsan 43 

science looks into his face. Ha! the bishop, too, 
is beside him. Conscience speaks, and is saying, 
"Let the real Valjean go and declare himself." 
This is duty. Conscience speaks, and his words 
are terrible, "Go, declare thyself." Jean Valjean's 
sin is following him. That evening he had 
robbed Petit Gervais; therefore he is imperiled. 
Sin finds man out. But the fight thickens, and 
Valjean thinks to destroy the mementos of his 
past, and looks fearfully toward the door, bolted 
as it is, and gathers from a secret closet his old 
blue blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old 
haversack, and a great thorn stick, and inconti- 
nently flings them into the flames. Then, noticing 
the silver candlesticks, the bishop's gifts, "These, 
too, must be destroyed," he says, and takes them 
in his hands, and stirs the fire with one of the 
candlesticks, when he hears a voice clamoring, 
"Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!" 
Conscience and a battle, but the battle was not 
lost; for you see him in the prisoners' dock, de- 
claring, "I am Jean Valjean;" and those of the 
court dissenting, he persisted, declared his recog- 
nition of some galley prisoners, urging still, "I 
am Jean Valjean; you see clearly that I am Jean 
Valjean ;" and those who saw and heard him were 
dazed ; and he said : "All who are here think me 
worthy of pity, do you not? Do you not? Great 
God ! When I think of what I was on the point 



44 A Hero and Some Other F01.K 

of doing, I think myself worthy of envy;" and 
he was gone. And next, Javert is seizing him 
fiercely, brutally^ imperiously, as a criminal for 
whom there is no regard. With this struggle 
of conscience and its consequent victory, "The 
Charge of the Light Brigade" becomes tawdry 
and garish. The sight moves us as the majestic 
minstrelsy of seas in tempest. No wonder that 
they who looked at Valjean, as he stood de- 
claring himself to be the real Valjean, were blinded 
with a great light. 

And his heart is so hungry, and his loyalty to 
God so urgent and so conquering. Jean Valjean 
has suffered much. Ulysses, buffeted by wars 
and stormy seas, has had a life of calm as com- 
pared with this new hero. Ulysses' battles were 
from without; Valjean's battles were from within. 
But if he has suffered greatly, he has also been 
greatly blessed. Struggle for goodness against sin 
is its own reward. We do not give all and get 
nothing. There are compensations. Recom- 
pense of reward pursues goodness as foam a ves- 
sel's track. If Jean Valjean loved Cossette with 
a passion such as the angels know; if she was his 
sun, and made the spring, there was a sense in 
which Cossette helped Valjean. There was re- 
sponse, not so much in the return of love as in 
that he loved her; and his lov6 for her helped him 
in his dark hours, helped him when he needed 



Jean VaIvJKan 45 

help the most, helped him on with God. He needs 
her to love, as our eyes need the fair flowers and 
the blue sky. His life was not empty, and God 
had not left himself without witness in Jean Val- 
jean's life ; for he had had his love for Cossette. 

But he is bereft. Old age springs on him sud- 
denly, as Javert had done in other days. He has, 
apparently without provocation, passed from 
strength to decrepitude. Since he sees Cossette 
no more, he has grown gray, stooped, decrepit. 
There is no morning now, since he does not see 
Cossetie. You have seen him walking to the 
corner to catch sight of her house. How feeble 
he is ! Another day, walking her way, but not 
so far; and the next, and the next, walking; but 
the last day he goes scarce beyond his own 
threshold. And now he can not go down the 
stairs ; now he is in his own lonely room, alone. 
He sees death camping in his silent chamber, but 
feels no fright. No, no ! rather, 

"Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 
Approacliing, called. 

For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
See, through the gray skirts of a lifting squall. 
The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
To save the life despaired of, than he saw 
Death dawning on him, and the close of all." 

But Cossette, Cossette ! To see her once, just 
once, only once ! To touch her hand — O that were 



46 A Hero and Some; Othe;r Foi,k 

heaven! But he says to his heart, "I shall not 
touch her hand, and I shall not see her face — 
no more, no more!" And the little garments he 
brought her when he took her from her slavery 
with the Thenardiers, there they are upon his bed, 
where he can touch them, as if they were black 
tresses of the woman he had loved and lost. The 
bishop's candlesticks are lit. He is about to die, 
and writes in his poor, sprawling fashion to 
Cossette — writes to her. He fronts her always, as 
the hills front the dawn. He ceases, and sobs 
Hke a breaking heart, O ! "She is a smile that 
has passed over me. I shall never see her again !'* 
And the door dashes open; Marius and Cossette 
are come. Joy, joy to the old heart! Jean Val- 
jean thinks it is heaven's morning. Marius has 
discovered that Jean Valjean is not his murderer, 
but his savior; that he has, at imminent peril of 
his life, through the long, oozy quagmire of the 
sewer, with his giant strength, borne him across 
the city, saved him; and now, too late, Marius 
began to see in Jean Valjean "a strangely lofty 
and saddened form," and has come to take this 
great heart home. But God will do that himself. 
Jean Valjean is dying. He looks at Cossette as 
if he would take a look which would endure 
through eternity, kisses a fold of her garment, and 
half articulates, "It — is — nothing to die;" then 
suddenly rises, walks to the wall, brings back a 



JKAN Vai^j^an 47 

crucifix, lays it near his hand. "The Great 
Martyr," he says; fondles Marius and Cossette; 
sobs to Cossette, "Not to see you broke my 
heart;" croons to himself, "You love me;" puts 
his hands upon their heads in a caress^ saying, 
"I do not see clearly now." Later he half whis- 
pered, "I see a Hght!" And a man and woman 
are raining kisses on a dead man's hands. And 
on that blank stone, over a nameless grave in the 
cemetery of Pere la Chaise, let some angel sculp- 
tor chisel, "Here lies Jean Valjean, Hero." 



XI 

Some Words on Loving Shakespeare 

WHAT a soul wants is to feel itself of serv- 
ice. Life's chances seem drunk up like the 
dews from morning flowers in burning summer 
times. To risk literary adventure after these cen- 
turies of thinking and saying (and such thinking 
and such saying!), requires the audacity of a 
simpleton or the boldness of the old discoverers. 
Every patch of literary ground seems occupied, as 
those fertile valleys lifting from sea-levels along 
a shining stream to the far hills and fair. So much 
has been said on Shakespeare, and he has stung 
men to such profound and fertile sayings, that to 
speak of him seems an impertinence. I have 
never seen an essay on Shakespeare I have not 
run to read. Whoever holds the cup, I will drain 
it dry, if filled with wine from this rare vintage. 
Practically all our great writers have dreamed of 
him, and told their dreams ; and many a writer 
who makes no claim to greatness has done the 
same. Some people you can not keep your eyes 
off of; and of these Shakespeare is one. Who 
has n't talked of him ? When Alfred Tennyson lay 

48 



SoMK Words on I^oving Shakkspkare 49 

dying in the white moonlight, his son tells how 
he held the play of Cymbeline in his dying- 
hands, as was fitting, seeing he had held it in his 
living hands through many golden years. Than 
this dying tribute, Shakespeare never had more 
gracious compliment paid his genius. Who passes 
Shakespeare in his library without a caress of eye 
or hand? I would apologize if I were guilty of 
such a breach of literary etiquette. Boswell's 
Johnson edited Shakespeare ; and Charles Lamb 
and Goethe and DeQuincey and Coleridge and 
Taine and Ivowell and Carlyle and Emerson have 
written of him, some of them greatly. I wonder 
Macaulay kept hands from him, but probably be- 
cause he was the historian of action rather than 
letters; and after reading what these have said, 
how can one be but silenced? 

But it has seemed to me that, while there was 
a wilderness of writing about Shakespeare as a 
genius and as a whole, there was co-operative 
dearth of writings on the individual dramas. 
Authors content themselves with writing on the 
dramatist, and neglect to write upon the dramas. 
If this be true, may there not be an unoccupied 
plot of ground where a late-comer may pitch tent, 
as under the hemlocks by some babbling water, 
and feel himself in some real way proprietary? I 
have discovered a growing feeling in my thought 
that enough has not been said, and can not be 

4 



50 A Hbro and Some: Othsr Foi^k 

said, about the Macbeths and Tempests and Lears 
and Hamlets. 

Shakespeare is too massive to be discussed 
in an hour. One essay will not suffice for him. 
He is as a mountain, whose majesty and multitu- 
dinous beauty, meaning, and magnitude and im- 
press, must be gotten by slow processes in journey- 
ing about it through many days. Who sits under 
its pines at noon, lies beside its streams for rest, 
walks under its lengthening shadows as under a 
cloud, and has listened to the voices of its water- 
falls^ thrilling the night and calling to the spa- 
cious firmament as if with intent to be heard "very 
far off," has thus learned the mountain, vast of 
girth, kingly in altitude, perpetual in sovereignty. 
We study a world's circumference by seg- 
ments; nor let us suppose we can do other by 
this cosmopolitan Shakespeare. He, so far as 
touches our earth horizon, is ubiquitous. L-ook- 
ing at him sum-totally, we feel his mass, and say 
we have looked upon majesty. But as a mountain 
is, in circumference and altitude, always beckon- 
ing us on, as if saying, "My summit is not far 
away, but near," and so spurring our laggard 
steps to espouse the ascent, and toiling on, on, still 
on, a little further — only a little further — till heart 
and flesh all but fail and faint, but for the might 
of will, we fall to rise again, and try once more, 
till we fall upon the summit, and lie on thresholds 



SoMB Words on I^oving Shake;spi)are; 51 

leading to the stars. The mountain understated 
its magnitude to us — not of intent, but in simple 
modesty. I think it did not itself know its mass. 
Greatness has a subtle self-depreciation; and we 
shall come to know our huge Shakespeare only 
by approaching him on foot. He must be studied 
in fragments. His plays, if I may be pardoned 
for coining a word, need not an omnigraph, but 
monographs. Let Shakespeare be, and give eye 
and ear to his history, comedy, tragedy; and 
when we have done with them, one by one, we 
shall discover how the aggregated mass climbs 
taller than highest mountains. This method, in 
tentative fashion, I propose to apply in some 
studies in this volume, or other volumes, be- 
lieving that the company of those who love 
Shakespeare can never be large enough for his 
merits, and that many are kept away from the 
witchery of him because they do not well know 
the fine art of approaching him. I would, there- 
fore, be a doorkeeper, and throw some doors wide 
open, that men and women may unhindered enter. 
This essay aims to stand as a porter at the gate. 
We shall never overestimate Shakespeare, be- 
cause we can not. Some men and things lie be- 
yond the danger of hyperbole. No exaggeration 
is possible concerning them, seeing they tran- 
scend all dreams. Space can not be conceived 
by the most luxuriant imagination, holding, as 



52 A He;ro and Some; Othkr FoIvK 

it does, all worlds, and capable of holding another 
universe besides, and with room to spare. 
Clearly, we can not overestimate space. Thought 
and vocabulary become bankrupt when they at- 
tempt this bewildering deed. Genius is as im- 
measurable as space. Shakespeare can not be 
measured. We can not go about him, since life 
fails, leaving the journey not quite well begun. 
Yet may we attempt what can not be performed, 
because each attempt makes us worthy, and we 
are measured, not by what we achieve, but by 
what we attempt, as Lowell writes : 

"Grandly begin! Though thou have time 
But for one line, be that sublime: 
Not failure, but low aim, is crime." 

The eaglet's failure in attempted flight teaches 
him to outsoar clouds. We are not sO' greatly 
concerned that we find the sources of the Nile 
as that we search for them. In this lie our tri- 
umph and reward. 

Besides all this, may there not be a place for 
more of what may be named inspirational liter- 
ature? Henry Van Dyke has coined a happy 
phrase in giving title to his delightful volume on 
"The Poetry of Tennyson," calling his papers 
"Essays in Vital Criticism." I like the thought. 
Literature is life, always tha^, in so far as liter- 
ature is great ; for literature tells our human 



Some Words on Loving Shakespkark 53 

story. Essayist, novelist, poet, are all doing one 
thing, as are sculptor, painter, architect. Of 
detail criticism ("dry-as-dust" criticism, to use 
Carlyle's term) there is much, though none too 
much, which work requires scholarship and pains- 
taking, and is necessary. Malone is a requirement 
of Shakespearean study. But, candidly, is verbal, 
textual criticism the largest, truest criticism? 
Dust is not man, though man is dust. No geolo- 
gist's biography of the marble from Carrara, nor 
a biographer's sketch of the sculptor, will explain 
the statue, nor do justice to the artist's concep- 
tion. I, for one, want to feel the poet's pulse- 
beat, brain-beat, heart-beat. What does he 
mean? Let us catch this speaker's words. What 
was that he said? Let me feel sure I have his 
meaning. We may break a poem up into bits, 
like pieces of branches picked up in a woodland 
path ; but is this what the poet would have de- 
sired? He takes lexicons and changes them into 
literatures, begins with words, ends with poems. 
His art was synthetic. He was not a crab, to 
move backward, but a man, to move forward ; and 
his poetry is not debris, like the broken branch, 
but is exquisite grace and moving music. Tears 
come to us naturally, like rain to summer clouds, 
when we have read his words. Much criticism 
is dry as desiccated foods, though we can not be- 
lieve this is the nobler criticism, since God's grow- 



54 -A. Hkro and Some Othkr FoIvK 

ing fruit is his best fruit. A tree with climbing 
saps and tossing branches, fertile in shade and 
sweet with music, is surely fairer and truer than a 
dead, uprooted, prostrate, decaying trunk. This, 
then, would I aspire humbly to do with Shakes- 
peare or another, to help men to his secret; for 
to admit men to any poet's provinces is nothing 
other than to introduce them 

"To the island valley of Avilion, 
Where falls not hail nor rain nor any snow. 
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns. 
And bowery hollows crowned with summer seas." 

There is no trace of exaggeration in saying: 
Many people frequent theaters ostensibly for the 
purpose of understanding the great dramatists, 
and, leading thereto, seeing noted tragedians act 
Lear, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and at 
the end of years of attendance have no conception 
of these dramas as a whole. They had heard one 
voice among the many; but when the many voices 
blended, what all meant they can not begin to 
guess. What playgoer will give a valid analysis 
of King Lear? Ask him, and his ideas will be 
chaotic as clouds on a stormy night. Not even 
the elder Kean is the best interpreter of 
Shakespeare ; for the dramatist reserves that 
function to himself — Shakespeare is his own best 



SoM:e Words on I^oving Shakkspieare 55 

interpreter. Dream over his plays by moonlit 
nights ; pore over his pages till chilly skies 
grow gray with dawn ; read a play without ris- 
ing from the ingratiating task, and you, not a 
tragedian, will have a conception of the play. I 
will rather risk getting at an understanding of 
beautiful, bewitching Rosalind by reading and re- 
reading "As You Like It" than by all theaters 
and stage-scenes and players. A dramatist is his 
own best interpreter. The most discerning crit- 
ics of the great dramas are not theater-goers. 
The theater runs to eyes; study runs to thought. 
In a theater the actor thinks for us ; in a study 
we think for ourselves. For contemporaries of 
"The Letters of Junius" to attempt guessing who 
Junius was, was plainly exhilarating as a walk 
at morning along a country lane. To attempt the 
interpretation of a Shakespeare's tragedy for 
yourself is no less so. Believe in your own 
capabilities, and test your own powers. Con- 
ceive of Shakespeare's folk, not as dead and past, 
but as living. These men and women, among 
whom we move, are those among whom Shakes- 
peare moved. Ages change customs and cos- 
tumes, but not characters. Bring Shakespeare 
down to now, and see how rational his men and 
women become ; and we, as central to his move- 
ment, may begin to reckon on the periodicity of 
souls as of comets. I would have people inherit 



56 A He;ro and Some) Other F01.K 

Shakespeare as they inherit Newton's discoveries 
or Columbus's new world. 

And as we know, we shall learn to trust, 
Shakespeare. He is uniformly truthful. He may 
sin against geographical veracity, as when he 
names Bohemia a maritime province; or he may 
give Christian reasonings to ancient heathen; but 
these are errata, not falsehoods ; and besides, 
these are mistakes of a colorist^ or in background 
of figure-painting, and do not touch the real prov- 
ince of the dramatist, whose office is not to paint 
landscapes, but figures — and figures not of physique, 
but of soul — ^the delineation of character being the 
dramatist's business. Here is Shakespeare always 
accurate. To argue with him savors of petulancy 
or childish ignorance or egotism. Some people 
ourselves have met had no sense of character, as 
some have no sense of color. They do not per- 
ceive logical continuity here, as in reasoning, but 
approach each person as an isolated fact, whereas 
souls are a series — men repeating men, women 
repeating women, in large measure, as a child 
steps in his father's tracks across a field of snow 
in winter. Other people seem intuitively to 
read character, being able to shut their eyes and 
see more than others with eyes open, having a 
faculty for practical psychology, which is little 
less than miracle, as in Tennyson, who was not 
a man among men — being shy as a whip-poor-will. 



SoM:e Words on L,oving Shakespeark 57 

seclusive as flowers which haunt the woodland 
shadows — yet those reading him must know how 
accurately he reads the human heart; and his 
characterization of Guinevere, Pelleas, Bedivere, 
Enid, the lover in Maud, a Beckett the Princess, 
Philip, Enoch Arden, and Dora, are, in ac- 
curacy, as 

"Perfect music unto noble words." 

Some people are born to this profound in- 
sight as storm-petrels for the seas, needing not 
to be tutored, and are as men and women to 
whom we tell our secrets, scarce knowing why 
we do. But Shakespeare knows what the 
sphinx thinks, if anybody does. His genius is 
penetrative as cold midwinter entering every 
room, and making warmth shiver in ague fits. 
I think Shakespeare never errs in his logical 
sequence in character. He surprises us, seems 
unnatural to us, but because we have been super- 
ficial observers; while genius will disclose those 
truths to which we are blind. Recur to Ophelia, 
whom Goethe has discussed with such insight. 
Ophelia is, to our eyes and ears, pure as air. 
We find no fault in her. Certainly, from any 
standpoint, her conduct is irreproachable; yet, 
surprisingly enough, when she becomes insane, 
she sings tainted songs, and salacious suggestions 
are on her lips, which in sane hours never ut- 



58 A Hero and Some Cipher Foi^k 

tered a syllable of such a sort. And Shakespeare 
is wrong? No; follow him. Thoughts are like 
rooms when shutters are closed and blinds down, 
and can not, therefore, be seen. We tell our 
thoughts, or conceal them, according to our de- 
sire or secretiveness, and speech may or may 
not be a full index to thought; and Shakespeare 
would indicate that fair Ophelia, love-lorn and 
neglected; fair Ophelia, whose words and con- 
duct were unexceptional, even to the sharp eyes 
of a precisian — fair Ophelia cherished thoughts 
not meet for maidenhood, and in her heart toyed 
with voluptuousness. I know nothing more accu- 
rate; and the penetration of this poet seems, for 
the moment, something more than human. After 
a single example, such as adduced, would not he 
be guilty of temerity who would question Shakes- 
peare's accuracy in character delineation? The 
sum of what has been said on this point is, dis- 
trust yourself rather than Shakespeare; and when 
your notions and his are not coincident, or when, 
more strongly stated, you feel sure that here for 
once he is inaccurate, reckon that he is pro- 
founder than you, and do you begin to seek for 
a hidden path as one lost in a wilderness, when, 
in all probability, you will discover that what you 
deemed inexact was in reality a profounder truth 
than had come under your observation. Nor 



Some Words on Loving Shakkspeark 59 

would a discussion of Shakespeare's truthfulness 
be rounded out should his value as historian be 
omitted. He is profoundest of philosophical his- 
torians, compelling the motives in historic person- 
ages to disclose themselves, while, in the main, 
his historical data are correct as understood in his 
day. He has not juggled with facts, though in 
instances where he has taken liberty with events 
he has, by such change in historic setting, made 
the main issues more apparent. Some one has 
said that simply as historian of England Shakes- 
peare has done nobly by his country, which 
remark I, for one, think accurate. Beginning 
with King John, he keeps the main channels of 
English history to the birth of Elizabeth, where, 
in a spirit of subtle courtesy, he makes the desti- 
nation of his historical studies. If the purpose of 
noble history be to make us understand men and, 
consequently, measures, then is Shakespeare still 
the greatest English historian. Richard IH 
never becomes so understandable as in the drama ; 
and Henry IV is a figure clearly seen, as if he 
stood in the sunlight before our eyes, so that any 
one conversant with these history-plays is forti- 
fied against all stress in solid knowledge and pro- 
found insight into turbulent eras of Anglo- 
Saxon history; for Shakespeare has given us 
history carved in relief, as are the metopes of the 



6o A He;ro and Some; Othe;r Folk 

Parthenon. For knowledge psychologically and 
historically accurate commend me to William 
Shakespeare, historian. 

The lover is Shakespeare's main thesis; and 
his lovers — men and wiomen — never violate the 
proprieties of love. What his lovers do has been 
done and will be done. Helena, in "All 's Well 
that Ends Well," is a true phase of womanhood; 
and in those days of the more general infidelity and 
lordship of man, more common than now — 
though now this picture is truthful — ^woman has a 
power of self-sacrifice and rigorous self-denial 
when in love, which, as it is totally unconscious 
on her part, is as totally inexplicable on our part. 
Life is not a condition easily explained. The 
heart of simplest man or woman is a mystery, 
compared with which the sphinx is an open secret. 
The vagaries of love in life are the vagaries of love 
in Shakespeare. Life was his book, which he 
knew by heart. Rosalind, in "As You Like It," 
is a portrait both fair and accurate. We have 
seen Rosalind, and the sight of her was good for 
the eyes. To read Shakespeare is to be told what 
we ourselves have seen, we not recognizing the 
people we had met until he whispers in our ears, 
"You have seen her and him ;" whereat we answer, 
"Yes, truly, so we have, though we did not know 
it till you told us." 

Shakespeare is philosopher of both sexes. 



SoMn Words on I^oving Shakespkare 6i 

though this is not the rule, as we will readily agree, 
thinking over the great portrait painters of char- 
acter. To state a single illustrative case: Hall 
Caine must be allowed to have framed some 
mighty men, tragic, or melodramatic sometimes, 
somber always, but men of bulk and character. 
Pete, in "The Manxman/' is a creation sufficient 
to make the artist conceiving him immortal; and 
Red Jason is no less real, manly, mighty, self-mas- 
tering, self-surrendering. Caine's men are giants; 
but his women do not satisfy and seldom interest 
us, with an exception in a few cases — as with Na- 
omi in "The Scape Goat," and Greeba, wife of 
Michal Sunlocks; though Naomi is little more 
than a figure seen at a doorway, standing in the 
sun; for she has not forged a character up to the 
time when her lover puts arm about her, as she 
droops above her dying father, when his vast love 
would make him immortal for her sake. Glory 
Quayie is interesting, but unsatisfactory. My be- 
lief is that Tolstoi has drawn no man approaching 
his astonishing Anna Karenina. Shakespeare is 
ambidexter here. All things are seemingly native 
to him ; for he is never at a loss. Not words, 
thoughts, dreams, images, music, fail him for a 
moment even. Who found him feeling for a 
word? Did we not find them ready at his hand as 
Ariel was ready to serve Prospero? Lear, 
Prospero, Brutus, Cassius, Falstaff, lago, Mac- 



62 A Hero and Somk Othkr FoIvK 

beth, Hamlet, are as crowning creations as Cleo- 
patra, Miranda, Lady Macbeth, Katharine the 
Shrew, Imogen, or Cordelia. We know not which 
to choose, as one who looks through a mountain 
vista to the sea, declaring each view fairer than 
the last, yet knowing if he might choose any one 
for a perpetual possession he could not make de- 
cision. We are incapable of choosing between 
Shakespeare's men and his women. 

Small volumes are best for reading Shakes- 
peare, for this reason : In large volumes the 
dramas get lost to your thought, as a nook of 
beauty is apt to get lost in the abundant beauty 
of summer hills, solely because there are so many; 
but when put into small volumes, each play be- 
co'mes individualized, made solitary, and stands 
out like a tree growing in a wide field alone. Do 
not conceive of Shakespeare's plays as marble 
column, pediment, frieze, metope, built into a 
Parthenon, but conceive of each play as a Parthe- 
non; for I think it certain each one might have 
stood solitary on cape or hill, as those old Greeks 
built temples to their tutelar deities. He wrote 
so much and so greatly as to bewilder us, just 
as night does with her multitudinous stars. Who 
maps the astral globe will divide his heavens into 
sections, so he may chart his constellations. The 
like must be done with Shakespeare. A great 
painting is always at more of an advantage in a 



SoMK Words on I,oving Shakejspi^are; 63 

room of its own than in a gallery, since each 
picture is in a way a distraction, stealing a trifle 
of beauty from its fellow, though adding nothing 
to itself thereby. "Come," we say to a dear friend 
from whom we have been parted for a long time, 
"come, let me have you alone;" and you walk 
across a field, and sit in the singing shadows of 
the pines — you appropriate your friend. Do the 
same with a poem ; for in such a wilderness of 
beauty and majest)' as Shakespeare's plays this 
need becomes imperative. Pursuant to this sug- 
gestion, I recur to a previous thought on Shakes- 
pearean criticism that, rich as it is, is defective in 
this individualization — so much being written on 
the whole, so little in comparison on the parts. 
Each drama fills our field of vision, and justifies 
a dissertation. Each dialogue of Plato demands 
an essay by Jowett. How well, then, may each 
dialogue of Shakespeare demand a separate 
study! There is distinct gain in looking at a 
landscape from a window, sitting a little back from 
the window-sill, the view being thus framed as a 
picture, and the superfluous horizon cut off; and 
the relevancies, as I may say, are included and the 
irrelevancies excluded ; for in looking at too 
much we are losers, not gainers, the eye failing to 
catch the entirety of meaning. Here is the ad- 
vantage of the landscape painter, who seizes the 
view to which we should restrict our eyes, bring- 



64 A Hero and Some Other FoIvK 

ing into compass of canvas what we should have 
brought into compass of sky and scene, but did 
not. So these window views of Shakespeare are 
what we greatly need now^ and are what Hudson 
and Rolfe and Ulrici and the various editors of 
note have given. 

But after all, the best interpretation of a drama 
or any poem is to be gained first hand, nothing 
being clearer than that every poem challenges 
individual interpretation, as if saying, "What do 
you think I mean?" There is too much knowing 
productions by proxy, of being conversant with 
what every sort of body thinks abodt Hamlet, but 
ourselves being a void so far as distinctively indi- 
vidual opinion goes. A poem, like the Scriptures, 
is its own best interpreter; and there is always 
scope for the personal equation in judging liter- 
ature, because criticism is empiricism in any case, 
being opinion set against opinion. Different 
people think different things, and that is the end. 
Literary criticism can never be an exact science, 
and everybody may have and should have an 
opinion. Great productions have never had their 
meaning exhausted, since meanings are an infinite 
series. So, to get an interpretation of Cymbeline, 
say, get into the midst of the drama, as if it were 
a stream and you a boatman in your boat. Com- 
mit you to the drama's floo4, omitting for a time 
what others have thought^ and read as if the poem 



Some Words on I/Oving Shake^speare; 65 

were a fresh manuscript found by you, and read 
with such avidity as scholars of the Renaissance 
knew when a pahmpsest of Tacitus or Theocritus 
was found. Let your imagination, as well as the 
poet's, spread wings. Becom'e creative yourself; 
for this is true : No one can rightly conceive any 
work of imagination and be himself unimaginative. 
Read and re-read, and at length, like the cliffs of 
shore rising out of ocean mists, dim, but stable 
and increasingly palpable, will come a scheme of 
meaning. Miss nothing. Let no beauty elude you. 
Odors must not waste; we, in a spirit of lofty 
econom.y, must inhale them. Watch the drift of 
verbal trifles ; for Shakespeare uses no superfluities. 
His meaning dominates his method ; his modu- 
lations are prophetic. See, therefore, that he does 
not elude you, escaping at some path or shadow, 
but cling to his garments, however swiftly he 
runs. Such study will bear fruit of sure triumph 
in your conceiving a hidden import of a great 
drama. This method of self-assertiveness in read- 
ing is logical and invigorating. Think as well as 
be thought for. 

Of all poets, Shakespeare is richest in the 
material of simile. He thought in pictures, which 
is another way of saying he wooed comparatives. 
Thought is inert; and he is greatest in expression 
who can supply his thinking with ruddy blood, 
flush the pallid cheek, make the dull eye bright, 
5 



66 A Hejro and Some; Othe;r Foi^k 

and make laughter run across the face like ripples 
of sunshine across water touched by the wind. 
In Shakespeare's turn of phrase and use of figure 
is a fertility of suggestion such as even Dante 
can not approximate. He is unusual, which is 
a merit; for thus is mind kept on the alert, like 
a sentinel fearing surprise. Of this an essay might 
be filled with illustrations. He does not try to use 
figures, but can not keep from using them. As 
stars flash into light, so he flashes into metaphor, 
metonymy, trope, personification, or simile. Be- 
cause he sees everything, is he fertile in sugges- 
tion, and his comparisons are numerous as his 
thoughts. See how his figures multiply as you have 
seen foam-caps multiply on waves when the wind 
rises on the sea! 

"We burn daylight." 

"Nay, the world 's my oyster. 
Which I with sword shall open." 

"I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted." 

"My library 
Was dukedom large enough." 

"Into the eye and prospect of his soul." 

"Make a swan-like end, 
Fading in music." 

"Those blessed candles of the night." 



SoMB Words on I^oving Shakespeare 67 

"The schoolboy, with his satchel 
And shining, morning face." 

"Like an unseasonable stormy day. 
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores." 

"He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines." 

"And must I ravel out 
My weaved-up follies?" 

"Give sorrov/ leave awhile to tutor me 
To this submission." 

"The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day 
Is crept into the bosom of the sea." 

"There is some soul of goodness in things evil. 
Would men observingly distill it out." 

"He hath a tear for pity, and a hand 
Open as day for melting charity." 

"That daffed the world aside. 
And bid it pass." 

"He is come to ope 
The purple testament of bleeding war." 

"She sat, like patience on a monument. 
Smiling at grief." 

"That strain again; it had a dying fall: 
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south. 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odor." 

"For courage mounts with occasion." 



68 A Hero and Some; Othkr Foi<k 

"Here I and sorrows sit; 
Here is my throne; bid kings come bow to it." 

"Death's dateless night." 

"Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, 
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man." 

"The tongues of dying men 
Enforce attention like deep harmony." 

"Falstaff sweats to death, 
And lards the lean earth as he walks along." 

"I have set my life upon a cast. 
And I will stand the hazard of the die." 

" 'T is better to be lowly born, 
And range with humble livers in content. 
Than be perked up in glistering grief, 
And wear a golden sorrow." 

"An old man broken with the storms of state." 

"Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye." 

"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops." 

"Within the book and volume of my brain." 

"One vial full of Edward's blood is cracked, 
And all the precious liquor spilt." 

In such quest as this, one is enticed as if he 
followed the windings of a stream under the 
shadows of the trees. Past' waterfall and banks 
of flowers and choiring of the birds, he goes on 



Some; Words on I^oving Shakespsare 69 

forever, except he force himself to pause. 
Shakespeare is always an enticement, whose 
turns of poetic thought and verbiage are a pure 
delight. Note this quality in the quotations — a 
word naturally expresses a thought. Shakespeare's 
figures express a series of thoughts as varied land- 
scapes seen in pictures ; in consequence, to read 
him is to see resemblances in things, because we 
have sharpened vision and can not, after reading 
him, be blind as we were before, but feel the 
plethora of our world with the poetic. After he 
has spoken for us and to us, the world's capacity 
is enlarged ; we are, in truth, not so much as those 
who have read poetry as we are like those who 
have seen the world pass before our eyes. We 
thought the world a stream run dry; but lo! the 
bed is full of waters, flooded from remote hills, 
where snowdrifts melt and make perpetual rivers. 
After hearing him, we expect things of our 
world; its fertility seems so exhaustless. 

Shakespeare has no hint of invalidism about 
him, but is the person, not the picture, of perfect 
health. Not an intimation of the hypochondriac 
nor of the convalescent do I find in him. He is 
healthy, and his voice rings out like a bell on a 
frosty night. Take his hand, and you feel shak- 
ing hands, not with ^sculapius, but with Health. 
To be ailing when Shakespeare is about is an 
impertinence for which you feel compelled to 



70 A He;ro and Some; Other Foi,e 

ofifer apology. Does not this express our feeling 
about this poet? He is well, always well, and 
laughs at the notion of sickness. He starts 
a-walking, and unconsciously runs, as a school- 
boy after school. His smile breaks into ringing 
laughter; and he, not you, knows why he either 
smiles or laug'hs. He and sunlight seem close 
of kin. A mountain is a challenge he never re- 
fuses, but scales it by bounds, Hke a deer when 
pursued by the hunter and the hound. He is not 
tonic, but bracing air and perfect health and youth, 
which makes labor a holiday and care a jest. 
Shakespeare is never morose. Dante is the pic- 
ture of melancholy, Shakespeare the picture of 
resilient joy. Tennyson beheld "three spirits, mad 
with joy, dash down upon a wayside flower;" and 
our dramatist is like them. Life laughs on greet- 
ing him ; the grave grows dim to sight when he 
is near, and you see the deep sky instead, and 
across it wheel wild birds in happy motion. In 
Tennyson is perpetual melancholy — the mood and 
destiny of poetry, as I suppose — but Shakespeare 
is not melancholy, nor does he know how to be. 
His face is never sad, I think, and he is fonder 
of Jack Falstafif than we are apt to suppose; for 
health riots in his blood. He weeps, smiles 
breaking through his weeping, and he turns from 
the grave of tragedy with laughter leaning from 
his eyes, ^schylus is a poet whose face was never 



Some Words on IvOving ShakkspEare 71 

lit even with the candle-light of smiles; but 
Shakespeare, writer of tragedy, is our laughing 
poet. This plainly confounds our philosophy of 
poetry, since humor is not poetry; but he binds 
humor to his car as Achilles, Hector, and laughs 
at our upset philosophies, crying: "This is my 
Lear, weep for him ; this my Hamlet, break your 
hearts for him; this my Desdemona, grow tender 
for her woe, — but enough : this is my Rosalind and 
my Miranda, my Helena and Hermione, my Or- 
lando and Ferdinand, my Bassanio and Leontes; 
laugh with them" — and you render swift obe- 
dience, saying, with Lord Boyet, in "Love's Labor 

Lost," 

"O, I am stabbed with laughter!" 

He is court jester, at whose quips the genera- 
tions make merry. You can not be somber nor 
sober long with him, though he is deep as seas, 
and fathomless as air, and lonely as night, and 
sad betimes as autumn. He is not frivolous, but 
is joyous. The bounding streams, the singing 
trees, the leaping stags along the lake, the birds 
singing morning awake, — Shakespeare incor- 
porates all these in himself. He is what may be 
named, in a spiritual sense, this world's animal 
delight in life. There is a view of life sullen as 
November; and to be sympathetic with this mood 
is to ruin life and put out all its lights. Shakes- 
peare's resiliency of spirit would teach us what a 



72 A He;ro and Some) Othejr Folk 

dispassionate study of our own nature would have 
taught us, that to succumb to this gloom is not 
natural; to feel the weight of burdens all the time 
would conduct to insanity or death ; therefore has 
God made bountiful provision against such out- 
come in the lift of cloud and lightening of burden. 
We forget sleep is God's rest-hour for spirit; and, 
besides, we read in God's Book how, "at eventide, 
it shall be light," an expression at once of ex- 
quisite poetry and acute observation. Our lives 
are healthy when natural. The crude Byronic 
misanthropy, even though assumed, finds no favor 
in Shakespeare's eyes. 

Shakespeare is this world's poet — a truth hinted 
at before, but now needing amplifying a trifle. 
There is in him this-worldliness, but not other- 
worldliness, his characters not seeming to the full 
to have a sense of the invisible world. He is love's 
poet. His lovers are imperishable because real. 
He is love's laureate. Yet are his loves of this 
world. True, there are spurts of flight, as of an 
eagle with broken wing, when, as in Hamlet, he 
faults this world and aspires skyward, yet does 
not lose sight of the earth, and, like the wounded 
eagle in "Sohrab and Rustum," lies at last 

"A heap of fluttering feathers." 

Plainly, Shakespeare was a voyager in this 
world, and a discoverer, sailing all seas and 



Some) Words on I^oving Shakejspeare 73 

climbing tallest altitudes to their far summits ; but 
flight was not native to him, as if he had said: 

"We have not wings, we can not soar; 
But we have feet to scale, and climb." 

I can not think him spiritual in the gracious 
sense. His contemporary, Edmund Spenser, was 
spiritual, as even Milton was not. This world 
made appeal to this poet of the Avon on the radiant 
earthly side; the very clouds flamed with a glory 
borrowed from the sun as he looked on them. 
His world was very fair. In more than a poetic 
sense was 

"All the world a stage." 

Life was a drama, hastening, shouting, ex- 
hilarating, turbulent, free, roistering, but as tri- 
umphant as Elizabeth's fleet and God's stormy 
waters were over Philip's great Armada. Hamlet 
was the terribly tragic conception in Shakespeare 
because he was hopeless. Can you conceive 
Shakespeare writing "In Memoriam?" Tenny- 
son was pre-eminently spiritual, and "In Memo- 
riam" is his breath dimming the window-pane on 
which he breathed. That was Tennyson's life, but 
was patently no brave part of Shakespeare. He 
knew to shape tragedy, such as Romeo and 
Juliet; but how to send abroad a cry like Enoch 
Arden's prayer lay not in him. He compassed 



74 A He;ro and Some Other Foi,k 

our world, but found no way to leave what proved 
a waterlogged ship ; and how to pilot to 

"The undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveler returns," 

puzzles Shakespeare's will as it had Hamlet's. 

So not even our great Shakespeare can monopo- 
lize life. Some landscapes have not lain like a 
picture beneath his eyes ; he did not exhaust poetry 
nor life, and room is still left for 

"New men, strange faces, other minds," 

for whom, 

"Though much is taken, much abides; and though 
We are not that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are — 
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 



Ill 

Caliban 

YOUR great poet is eminently sane. Not that 
this is the conception current concerning 
him — the reverse being the common idea — that a 
poet is a being afflicted with some strange and un- 
classified rabies. He is supposed to be possessed, 
like the Norwegian Berserker, whose frenzy 
amounted to volcanic tumult. The genesis of 
misconceptions, however, is worth one's while to 
study; for in a majority of cases there is in the 
misconception a sufficient flavoring of truth to 
make the erroneous notion pass as true. At bot- 
tom, the human soul loves truth, nor willingly be- 
lieves or receives a lie. Our intellectual sin is 
synecdoche, the putting a part truth for a whole 
truth. Generalization is dangerous intellectual 
exercise. Our premise is insufficient, and our 
conclusion is self-sufficient, like some strutting 
sciom of a decayed house. Trace the origin of this 
idea of a poet's non-sanity. He was not ordinary, 
as other men, but was extraordinary, and as 
such belonged to the upper rather than the lower 
world; for we must be convinced how wholly the 
ancients kept the super-earthly in mind in their 

75 



76 A Hi^RO AND Some Othkr Foi.k 

logical processes — an attitude wise and in con- 
sonance with the wisest of this world's thinking. 
Heaven must not be left out of our computations, 
just as the sun must not be omitted in writing 
the history of a rose or a spike of golden-rod. 
In harmony with this exalted origin of the poet 
went the notion that he was under an afflatus. A 
breath from behind the world blew in his face; 
nay, more, a breath from behind the world blew 
noble ideas into his soul^ and he spake as one 
inspired of the gods. This conception of a poet 
is high and worthy ; nothing gross grimes it with 
common dust. Yet from so noble a thought — 
because the thought was partial — grew the gross 
misconception of the poet as beyond law, as not 
amenable to social and moral customs, as one 
who might transgress the moral code with im- 
punity, and stand unreproved, even blameless. 
He was thought to be his own law — a man whose 
course should no more be reproved or hindered 
than the winds. The poet's supremacy brought 
us to a wrong conclusion. The philosopher we 
assumed to be balanced, the poet to be unbalanced. 
Shelley, and Poe, and Heine, and Byron, and 
Burns elucidate this erroneous hypothesis of the 
poet. We pass lightly their misrule of them- 
selves with a tacit assumption of their genius hav- 
ing shaken and shocked their moral faculties as 
in some giant perturbation. 



Cai^iban 77 

I now recur to the initial suggestion, that the 
great poet is sane. The poet is yet a man, and 
man is more than poet. Manhood is the regal 
fact to which all else must subordinate itself. 
Nothing must be allowed to disfranchise man- 
hood ; and he who manumits the poet from social 
and ethical bonds is not logical, nor penetrative 
into the dark mystery of soul, nor is he the poet's 
friend. Nor is he a friend who assumes that 
the poet, because a poet, moves in eccentric paths 
rather than in concentric circles. Hold with all 
tenacity to the poet's sanity. He is superior, 
and lives where the eagles fly and stars run their 
far and splendid courses; but he is still man, 
though man grown tall and sublime. To the 
truth of this view of the great poet bear witness 
yEschylus, and Dante, and Spenser, and Shakes- 
peare, and Tennyson, and Browning, in naming 
whom we are lighting on high summits, as clouds 
do, and leaving the main range of mountains 
tintO'Uched. Shakespeare is absolutely sane. 
Not Blondin, crossing Niagara on a thread for a 
pathway, was so absolute in his balance as 
Shakespeare. He saw all the world. Nor is this 
all; for there are those who see an entire world, 
but see it distorted as an anamorphism. There 
is a cartoon world, where everybody is appre- 
hended as taking on other shapes than his own, 
and is valued in proportion as he is susceptible 



78 A Hero and Some Other Folk 

of caricature. But plate-glass is better for look- 
ing through than is a prism. What men need is. 
eyes which are neither far-sighted nor near- 
sighted, but right-sighted. Shakespeare was that. 
There is no hint of exaggeration in his charac- 
ters. They are people we have met on journeys, 
and some of whom we have known intimately. 
To be a poet it is not necessary to be a madman — 
a doctrine wholesome and encouraging. I lay 
down, then, as one of the canons for testing a 
poet's greatness, this, "Is he sane?" and purpose 
applying the canon to Robert Browning, giving 
results of such application rather than the modus 
operandi of such results. I assert that he bears 
the test. No saner man than Browning ever 
walked this world's streets. He was entirely 
human in his love of life for its own sake, in his 
love of nature and friends and wife and child. 
His voice, in both speech and laughter, had a ring 
and joyousness such as reminded us of Charles 
Dickens in his youth. His appreciation of life 
was intense and immense. This world and all 
worlds reported to him as if he were an ofificer 
to Whom they all, as subalterns, must report. The 
pendulum in the clock on a lady's mantel-shelf is 
not more natural than the pendulum swung in a 
cathedral tower, though the swing of the one is 
a slight and the swing of the other a great arc. 
Browning is a pendulum whose vibrations touch. 



Cawban 79 

the horizons. He does business with fabulous 
capital and on a huge scale^ and thinks, sees, 
serves, and loves after a colossal fashion, but is as 
natural in his large life as a lesser man is in his 
meager life. "Caliban upon Setebos" is a hint 
of the man's immense movement of soul and his 
serene rationality. 

Browning will be preacher; and as preachers 
Ho — and do wisely — he takes a text from the 
Scriptures, finding in a psalm a sentence embody- 
ing the thought he purposes elaborating, as a bud 
contains the flower. The Bible may safely be 
asserted to be the richest treasure-house of sug- 
gestive thought ever discovered to the soul. 
In my conviction, not a theme treated in the do- 
main of investigation and reason whose chapters 
may not be headed from the Book Divine. In 
his "Cleon," Browning has taken his text from 
the words of Paul; in "Caliban upon Setebos," 
his text is found in Asaph's psalm, and the words 
are, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such 
a one as thyself." A word will set a great brain 
on fire, as if the word were a torch and the brain 
a pine-forest, and to thoughtful minds it must be 
deeply interesting to know that this study in 
psychology, which stands distinctly alone in 
English literature and in universal literature, was 
suggested by a phrase from the Book of God. 

To begin with, Caliban is one of Shakespeare's 



8o . A Hkro and Somk Other Foi<k 

finest conceptions in creative art. Caliban is as 
certain in our thoughts as Ferdinand, Miranda, 
or Prospero. He is become, by Shakespeare's 
grace, a person among us who can not be ignored. 
Study his biography in "The Tempest/' and find 
how masterly the chief dramatist was in rendering 
visible those forms lying in the shadow-land of 
psychology. As Dowden has suggested, doubtless 
Caliban's name is a poet's spelling, or anagram, of 
"cannibal ;" and, beyond question, Setebos is a char- 
acter in demonology, taken from the record of the 
chronicler of Magellan's voyages, who pictures the 
Patagonians, when taken captive, as roaring, and 
"calling on their chief devil, Setebos." So far the 
historical setting of Caliban and Sycorax and 
Setebos. In character, Caliban and Jack Falstafi 
are related by ties closer than those of blood. 
Both are bestial, operating in different depart- 
ments of society; but in the knig'ht, as in the 
slave, only animal instincts dominate. Lust is 
tyrant. Animality destroys all manhood, and 
lowers to the slush and ooze of degradation every 
one given over to its control, A man degraded 
to the gross level of a beast because he prefers 
the animal to the spiritual — this is Caliban. His 
mind is atrophied, in part, because lust sins 
against reason. Caliban is Prospero's slave, but 
he is lust's slave more — a slavery grinding and 
ignominious as servitude to Prospero can be. i 



Cai^iban 8 1 

Prospero must always, in the widest sense, lord it 
over Caliban, with his diminished understanding 
and aggravated appetites, who vegetates rather 
than lives. His days are narrow as the days of 
browsing slieep and cattle ; but his soul knows the 
lecherous intent, the petty hate, the cankerous 
envy, the evil discontents, indigenous only to the 
soul of man. Plainly, Caliban is man, not beast; 
for his proclivities, while bestial, are still human. 
In a beast is a certain dignity, in that action is 
instinctive, irrevocable, and so far necessary. 
Caliban is not so. He might be other than he is. 
He is depraved, but yet a man, as Satan was an 
angel, though fallen. The most profligate man 
has earmarks of manhood on him that no beast 
can duplicate. And Caliban (on whom Prospero 
exhausts his vocabulary of epithets) attempting 
rape on Miranda; scowling in ill-concealing hate 
in service; playing truant in his task when from 
under his master's eyes; traitor to Prospero, and, 
as a co-conspirator with villains like himself, 
planning his hurt; a compound of spleen, malig- 
nancy, and murderous intent; irritated under 
conditions ; failing to seize moral and manly posi- 
tions with such ascendency as grows out of them, 
yet full of bitter hate toward him who wears the 
supremacy won by moral worth and mastery, — 
really, Caliban seems not so foreign to our knowl- 
edge after all. Such is Shakespeare's Caliban. 
6 



82 A He;ro and Somk Other Foi<k 

Him Browning lets us hear in a monologue. 
Whoever sets man or woman talking for us does 
us a service. To be a good listener is to be 
astute. When anybody talks in our hearing, we 
become readers of pages in his soul. He thinks 
himself talking about things; while we, if wise, 
know he is giving glimpses of Individual menio- 
rablHa. Caliban is talking. He is talking to him- 
self. He does not know anybody is listening; 
therefore will there be in him nothing theatrical, 
but his words will be sincere. He plays no part 
now, but speaks his soul. 

Browning is nothing if not bold. He attempts 
things audacious as the voyages of Ulysses. 
Nothing he has attempted impresses me as more 
bold, if so bold, as this exploit of entering into 
the consciousness of a besotted spirit, and stirring 
that spirit to frame a system of theology. Nan- 
sen's tramp along the uncharted deserts of the 
Polar winter was not more brilliant in inception 
and execution. Caliban Is a theorist In natural 
theology. He is building a theological system as 
certainly as Augustine or Calvin or Spinoza did. 
This poem presents that satire which constitutes 
Browning's humor. Conceive that he here satir- 
izes those omniscient rationalists who demolish, at 
a touch, all supernatural systems of theology, and 
proceed to construct purely natural systems in 
their place as devoid of vitality and inspiration as 



Caliban 83 

dead tree-trunks are of vital saps. So conceive 
this dramatic monologue, and the baleful humor 
appears, and is captivating in its biting sarcasm 
and unanswerable argument. Caliban is, in his 
ovv^n opinion, omniscient. He trusts himself ab- 
solutely. He is as infallible as the Positivists^ and 
as full of information as the Agnostics, absurd as 
such an attitude on their part must appear; for, 
as Romanes has shown in his "Thoughts on Re- 
ligion," the Agnostic must simply assert his in- 
ability to know, and must not dogmatize as to 
what Is or is not. So soon as he does, he has 
ceased to be a philosophic Agnostic. Caliban's 
theology, though grotesque, is not a whit more 
so than much which soberly passes in our day 
for "advanced thinking" and "new theolo'gy." 

Some things are apparent in Caliban. He is 
a man, not a beast, in that no beast has any com- 
merce with the thought of God. Man is declared 
man, not so much by thinking or by thinking's 
instrument — language — as by his moral nature. 
Man prays ; and prayer is the imprimatur of man's 
manhood. Camels kneel for the reception of their 
burdens, but never kneel to God. Only man has 
a shrine and an altar. Such things, we are told, 
are signs of an infantile state of civilization and 
superstition; but they may be boldly affirmed to 
be, in fact, infallible signs of the divinity of the 
human soul. Caliban is thinking of his god, 



84 A Hi^RO AND Some; Other Foi^k 

brutal, devilish; yet he thinks of a god, and that 
Is a possibility as far above the brute as stars 
are above the meadow-lands. He has a divinity. 
He is dogmatist, as ignorance is bound to be. 
He knows ; and distrust of himself or his con- 
clusions is as foreign to him as to the rationalists 
of our century and decade. Caliban makes a god. 
The attempt would be humorous were it not pa- 
thetic. If his conclusions are absurd^ they are 
what might be anticipated when man engages 
in the task of god-making. "Caliban upon Sete- 
bos" is the reductio ad absurdum of the attempt 
of man to create God. God rises not from man 
to the firmament^ but falls from the firmament 
to man. God does not ascend as the vapor, 
but descends as the light. This is the wide mean- 
ing of this uncanny poem. It is the sanity of 
the leading poet of the nineteenth century, and 
the greatest poet since Shakespeare, wbo' saw 
clearly the inanity of so-called scientific conclu- 
sions and godless theories of the evolution of 
mankind. Mankind can not create God. God 
creates mankind. All the man-made gods are 
fashioned after the similitude ol Caliban's Setebos. 
They are grotesque, carnal, devilish. Paganism 
was but an installment of Caliban's theory. God 
was a bigger man or woman, with aggravated 
human characteristics, as witness Jove and Venus 
and Hercules and Mars. Greek mythology is a 



Caliban 85 

commentary on Caliban's monologue. For man 
to evolve a god who shall be non-human, actually- 
divine in character and conduct, is historically im- 
possible. No man could create Christ. The at- 
tempt to account for religion by evolution is a 
piece of sorry sarcasm. Man has limitations. 
Here is one. By evolution you can not explain 
language, much less religion. Such is the lesson 
of "Caliban upon Setebos." Shakespeare created 
a brutalized man, a dull human slave, whom 
Prospero drove as he would have driven a vicious 
steed. This only, Shakespeare performed. Brown- 
ing proposed to give this man to thought, to sur- 
render him to the widest theme the mind has 
knowledge of — 'to let him reason on God. How 
colossal the conception! Not a man of our cen- 
tury would have cherished such a conception but 
Robert Browning. The design was unique, need- 
ful, valuable, stimulative. The originality, audacity, 
and brilliancy of the attempt are always a tonic 
to my brain and spiritual nature. With good 
reason has this poem been termed "extraordinary ;" 
and that thinker and critic, James Mudge, has 
named it "the finest illustration of grotesque art 
in the language." 

The picture of Caliban sprawling in the ooze, 
brute instincts regnant, is complete and admirable. 
Stealing time from service to be truant (seeing 
Prospero sleeps), he gives him over to pure ani- 



86 A Hero and Somk Othkr Foi,k 

mal enjoyment, when, on a sudden, from the 
cavern where he lies, 

"He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross 
And recross till they weave a spider web. 
Meshes of fire, 

And talks to his own self howe'er he please, 
Touching that other whom his dam called God;" 

but talks of God, not as a promise of a better life, 
but purely of an evil mind, 

"Because to talk about Him vexes Prospero! 
And it is good to cheat the pair [Miranda and Pros- 
pero], and gibe. 
Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech." 

What a motive for thinking on the august 
God ! He now addresses himself to the conceiv- 
ing of a divinity. He thrusts his mother's beliefs 
aside rudely, as a beast does the flags that stand 
along its way in making journey to the stream 
to slake its thirst. He is grossly self-sufificient. 
He is boor and fool conjoined. Where wise men 
and angels would move with reverent tread and 
forehead bent to earth, he walks erect, unhum- 
bled ; nay, without a sense of worship. How could 
he or another find God so? The mood of prayer 
is the mood of finding God. Who seeks Him 
must seek with thought aflame with love. Cali- 
ban's reasoning ambles like a' drunkard staggering 
home from late debauch. His grossness shames 



Caliban 87 

us. And yet were he only Caliban, and if he were 
all alone, we could forget his maudlin speech — 
but he is more. He is a voice of our own era. 
His babblings are not more crude and irreveren- 
tial than much that passes for profound thinking. 
Nay, Caliban is our contemporaneous shame. He 
asserts (he does not think — he asserts, settles 
questions with a word) that Setebos created 
not all things — the world and sun — 

"But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;" 

and this goodly frame of ocean and of sky and 
earth came of Setebos. 

"Being ill at ease, 

He hated that he can not change his cold 

Nor cure its ache." 

His god is selfishness, operating on a huge 
scale. But more, he 

"Made all we see and us in spite: how else? 
But did in envy, listlessness, or sport 
Make what himself would fain in a manner be — 
Weaker in most points, stronger in a few. 
Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while." 

Made them to plague, as Caliban would have 
done. And caprice is Setebos's method. He does 
things wantonly. No noble master passion flames 
in him. No goodness blesses him. Such a god 
Caliban makes, so that it is odds whether Caliban 
make God or God make Caliban. Be sure, a 



88 A Hero and Some Other Foi.k 

man-made god is like the man who made him. 
The sole explanation of God, "who dwelleth in 
light which no man can approach unto," and who 
is whiter than the light in which he dwells, is, 
he is not myth, man-made. God made man, and 
revealed to him the Maker. Thus only do we 
explain the surpassing picture the prophets and 
the Christ and the evangelists have left us of the 
mighty God. Caliban will persist in the belief 
that the visible system was created in Setebos's 
moment of being ill at ease and in cruel sportive- 
ness. Nature is a freak of a foul mind. But 
Caliban's god is not soHtary. How hideous were 
the Aztec gods ! They were pictured horrors. 
Montezuma's gods were Caliban's. Caliban's 
Setebos was another Moloch of the Canaanites, or 
a Hindoo Krishna. And the Greek and Norse 
gods were the infirm shadows of the men who 
dreamed them. Who says, after familiarizing 
himself with the religions of the world, that Cali- 
ban or his theology is myth? Setebos has no 
m'orals. He has might. But this was Jupiter. 
Read "Prometheus Bound," and know a Greek 
conception of Greek Zeus : 

"Such shows nor right nor wrong in him, 
Nor kind nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 
Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs 
That march now from the tnountain to the sea; 
Let twenty pass and stone the twenty-first, 
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so." 



Caliban 89 

How hideous this god, decrepit in all save 
power ! But for argument, suppose 

"He is good i' the main, 
Placable if his mind and ways were guessed, 
But rougher than his handiwork, be sure." 

Caliban thinks Setebos is himself a creature, 
made by something he calls "Quiet;" and what 
is this but the Gnostic notion of ^ons and their 
subordination to the great, hid God? No, this 
brief dramatic lyric is far from being an imagina- 
tion. Rather say it is a chapter taken from the 
history of man's traffic in gods. Setebos is cre- 
ative; lacks moral qualities in that he may be 
evil or good ; acts from spleen, and by simple 
caprice ; is loveless ; to be feared, deceived, 
tricked, as Caliban tricks Prospero, — so run the 
crude theological speculations of this man. He 
gets no step nearer truth. He walks in circles. 
He is shut in by common human Hmitations. 
Man can not dream about the sky until he has 
seen a sky, nor can he dream out God till God 
has been revealed. Caliban is no more helpless 
here than other men. His failure in theology is 
a picture of the failure of all men. God must 
show himself at Sinais and at Calvarys, at cross 
and grave and resurrection and ascension; must 
pass from the disclosure of his being the "I Am" 
to those climacteric moments of the world when 



90 A He;ro and Some) Othsr Foi<k 

he discovered to us that he was the "I am Love" 
and the "I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
God is 

"Terrible: watch his feats in proof! 

One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope. 

He hath a spite against me, that I know, 

Just as He favors Prospero ; who knows why? 

So it is all the same as well I find. 

. . . So much for spite." 

There is no after-life. 

"He doth His worst in this our life, 
Giving just respite lest we die through pain, 
Saving last pain for worst — with which, an end. 
Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire 
Is, not to seem too happy." 

Poor Caliban, not to have known that in the 
summer of man's joy our God grows glad ! All he 
hopes is, 

"Since evils sometimes mend. 
Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime. 
That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch 
And conquer Setebos, or likelier he 
Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die." 

This is tragic as few tragedies know how to 
be. Setebos is mean, revengeful, fitful^ spiteful, 
everything but good and noble; and his votary 
will live to hope that he will either be conquered 
by a mightier or will slumber forever! 

So Caliban creates a god, a cosmogony, a 



CaivIban 91 

theology; gets no thought of goodness from God 
or for himself; gets no sign of reformation in 
character; rises not a cubit above the ground 
where he constructs his monologue; puts into 
God only what is in Caliban; has no faint hint 
of love toward him from God, or from him toward 
God, when suddenly 

"A curtain o'er the world at once! 
Crickets stop hissing; not a bird — or, yes, 
There scuds His raven that has told Him all! 
It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind 
Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, 
And fast invading fires begin! White blaze — 
A tree's head snaps — and there, there, there, there, there, 
His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! 
Lo! 'Lieth fiat and loveth Setebos!" 

And there, like a groveling serpent in the ooze, 
there lies Caliban, abject in fear, with not a ray 
of love. Hopeless, loveless, see him lie — a spec- 
tacle sio sad as to make the ragged crags of ocean 
weep! 

So pitiful a theology, yet no more pitiful than 
theologies created in our own epoch. Men, not 
brutal but opinionated, assume to comprehend all 
things, God included. They destroy and create 
theologies with the flippant egotism of a French 
chevalier of the days of the Grand Monarch. 
They settle matters with a "Thus it is, and thus 
it is not." Would not those men do well to read 



92 A HSRO AND SOMK OTHKR FoI,K 

the parable, "Caliban upon Setebos?" Grant 
Allen and Huxley would be generously helped; 
for the more they would lose in dogmatism, so 
much the more would they gain in wisdom. And 
what is true of them is true of others of their fra- 
ternity. This irony of Browning's is caustic, but 
very wholesome. Barren as Caliban's theology 
is, certain contemporary theologies are not less so. 
A day to suffer and enjoy — and then the night, 
long, dark, dreamless, eternal! 

How sane Browning was ! What breadth of 
meaning is here disclosed! What preacher of 
this century has preached a more inspired sermon 
than "Caliban upon Setebos?" He saw the ir- 
rationality of rationalism. He knew that knowl- 
edge of God came, as the new earth, "down from 
God out of heaven." Men will do better to receive 
theologies from God than to create them. A life 
we may live, having the Pattern "showed us in the 
mount." Christ gives the lie to Caliban's estimate 
of Deity. Not spite, nor misused might, nor 
caprice, nor life surcharged with either indiffer- 
ence or spleen; but love and ministry and fertile 
thought and wide devotion to others' good, an 
oblation of Himself — this is God, of whom Cali- 
ban had no dream, and of whom the Christ was 
exegete. 



IV 

William the Silent 

FEW illustrious characters are so little known 
as William the Silent. His face has faded 
from the sky of history as glory from a sunset 
cloud; though, on attention, reasons why this 
is so may not be difficult to find. Some of them 
are here catalogued : He did not live to celebrate 
the triumph of his statesmanship. The nation 
whose autonomy and independence he secured is 
no longer a Republic, and so has, in a measure, 
ceased to bear the stamp of his genius. The nar- 
row limits of his theater of action; for the Belgic 
States were a trifling province of Philip Second's 
stupendous empire, stretching, as it did, from 
Italy to the farthest western promontory of the 
New World. A theater is something. Throw a 
heroic career on a world theater, such as Julius 
Caesar had, and men will look as they would on 
burning Moscow. The scene prevents obscura- 
tion. And last, Holland has, in our days, passed 
into comparative inconsequence, and presents few 
symptoms of that strength which once aspired to 
the rulership of the oceans. 

93 



94 A Hero and Soms Othe;r Folk 

The Belgic provinces were borrowed from the 
ocean by an industry and audacity which must 
have astonished the sea, and continues a glory to 
those men who executed the task, and to all men 
everywhere as well, since deeds of prowess or 
genius, wrought by one man or race, inure to the 
credit of all men and all races, achievement being, 
not local, but universal. These Netherlands, lying 
below sea-levels, became the garden-spot of 
Europe, nurturing a thrifty, capable people, 
possessing positive genius in industry, so that 
they not only grew in their fertile soil food for 
nations, if need be, but became weavers of fabrics 
for the clothing of aristocracies in remote nations ; 
this, in turn, leading of necessity to a commerce 
which was, in its time, for the Atlantic what that 
of Venice had been to the Mediterranean ; for the 
Netherlanders were as aquatic as sea-birds, seem- 
ing to be more at home on sea than on dry land. 
This is a brief survey of those causes which made 
Flanders, though insignificant in size, a princi- 
pality any king might esteem riches. In the era 
of William the Silent the Netherlands had reached 
an acme of relative wealth, influence, and com- 
manding Importance, and supplied birthplace and 
cradle to the Emperor Charles V, who, for thirty- 
seven years (reaching from 1519 to 1556) was 
the controlling force in European politics. This 
ruler was grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, 



WlI^LIAM THK SlIyENT 95 

and thus of interest to Americans, whose thought 
must be riveted on any one connected, however 
remotely, with the discovery of this New World, 
which supplies a stage for the latest and greatest 
experiment in civilization and liberty, religion, and 
individual opportunity. Low as Spain has now 
fallen, we can not be oblivious to the fact how that, 
on a day, Columbus, rebuffed by every ruler and 
every court, found at the Spanish court a queen 
who listened to his dream, and helped the dreamer, 
because the enthusiasm and eloquence of this 
arch-pleader lifted this sovereign, for a moment at 
least, above herself toward the high level where 
Columbus himself stood ; and that she staked her 
jewels on the casting of this die must always 
glorify Queen Isabella, and shine some glory on 
the nation whose sovereign she was. For such 
reason we are predisposed in Charles V's favor. 
He is as a messenger from one we love, whom we 
love because of whence he comes. His mother, 
Joanna, died, crazed and of a broken heart, from 
the indifference, perfidy, and neglect of her hus- 
band, Philip, Archduke of Austria. Her story 
reads like a novelist's plot, and reasonably too; 
for every fiction of woman's fidelity in love and 
boundlessness and blindness of affection is bor- 
rowed from living woman's conduct. Woman 
originates heroic episodes, her love surviving the 
wildest winter of cruelty and neglect, as if a 



96 A Hero and Somu Othkr FoIvK 

flower prevailed against an Arctic climate, despite 
the month-long night and severity of frosts, and 
still opened petals and dispensed odors as blossom- 
ing in daytime and sunlight of a far, fair country. 
The story of Joanna and Mary Tudor read sur- 
prisingly alike. In reading these old chronicles, one 
would think woman's lot was melancholy as a dreary 
day of uninterrupted rain. Doubtless her lot is 
ameliorated in these better days, when she is not 
chattel but sovereign, and gives her hand where 
her heart has gone before. But Queen Mary, dy- 
ing alone, longing for her Philip, who cared for 
her as much as a falcon for singing-birds, turning 
her dying eyes southward where her PhiHp was, 
moaning, "On my heart, when I am dead, you 
will find PhiHp's name written!" — Mary Tudor 
was an echo of the pain and cry of Joanna, Phil- 
ip's grandmother, a princess lacking in beauty of 
person and in sprightliness and culture of mind. 
Indeed, her intellect was weak to the verge of 
insanity; her love for her husband, the Archduke 
of Austria, doting, and its exhibition extravagant; 
and her jealousy, for whose exercise there was 
ample opportunity, insane and passionate. One 
thing she was, and that — a lover. Her husband 
was a sun ; and the less he shined on her, the more 
did she pine for his light. Than this, the history 
of kingly conjugal relations , has few sadder chap- 
ters. Archduke Philip was young, engaging. 



WlI<LIAM THE S1I.ENT 97 

affable, fond of society, preferring the Netherlands 
to Spain, and anything to his wife's companion- 
ship. Joanna and Philip were prospective heirs 
to the crowns of Castile and Aragon, and, as was 
clearly wise, were urged by Queen Isabella to 
oome to Spain, and be acknowledged as expectant 
sovereigns by the Cortes of both kingdoms. 
This was done. Here Duke Philip grew restless, 
eager for the Netherlands, and, despite the en- 
treaties of Ferdinand, Isabella, and his wife, set 
out for the Low Countries three days before 
Christmas, leaving his wafe alone to give birth to 
a son, than which a more heartless deed has not 
been credited even to the account of a king. 
But without him, Joanna sunk into a hopeless and 
irremediable melancholy; and was sullenly rest- 
less without him till his return to Brussels in the 
succeeding year. Philip's coldness inflamed her 
ardor. Three months after Joanna and Philip 
had been enthroned sovereigns of Castile, Philip 
sickened and died with his brief months of king- 
ship. His death totally disordered an understand- 
ing already pitifully weak. Her grief was tear- 
less and pitiful. To quote the words of Prescott : 
"Her grief was silent and settled. She continued 
to watch the dead body with the same tenderness 
and attention as if it had been alive, and though 
at last she permitted it to be buried, she soon re- 
moved it from the tomb to her own apartment;" 
7 



98 A He;ro and Some; Other Foi.k 

and she made it "her sole employment to bewail 
the loss and pray for the soul of her husband." 
Of such a weak though loyal and sorrowing 
mother was Charles V bom at Ghent, February 
24, 1500, who, at the age of sixteen, was left by 
the will of his godfather, Ferdinand, sole heir of 
his dominions ; and at the age of nineteen he was 
chosen Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. 
Fortune conspired to do him homage. Charles 
was little inclined to the study of the humanities, 
but fond of martial exercise, and, though neglect- 
ing general learning, studied, with avidity and 
success, history and the theory and practice of 
government, and accustomed himself to practical 
management of affairs in the government of the 
Netherlands, as early as 15 15 attending the de- 
liberations of the Privy Council. He was, as a 
youth, a prince of whom a realm would naturally 
feel proud, though he scarcely displayed those 
qualities which were afterward his chief character- 
istics. In 1 5 16, King Ferdinand, dying, left 
Cardinal Ximenes regent of Castile, thus bringing 
Charles into contact with one of the foremost states- 
men of Spanish history. Ximenes was rigorously 
ascetic in his life, and absolutely irreproachable in 
his morals, in an age when the clergy were 
excessively corrupt. He doubled his fasts, wore 
a hair shirt, slept on the bare ground, scourged him- 
self with assiduity and ardor; became the con- 



Wllrl^IAM THIS SlIvENT 99 

fessor of Oneen Isabella, and therefore of great 
political importance, inasmuch as she followed 
his counsel, not alone in things spiritual, but 
also in things temporal. Severe in his sanctity^ 
he demanded the same of his brethren, and re- 
formed the Franciscans, over whom he had been 
put despite frantic opposition. In the face of his 
own disinclination and determined refusal to ac- 
cept the ofHce, he was impelled, by means of a 
second papal bull, to accept the episcopate of 
Toledo, the highest ecclesiastical honor in Spain ; 
but under his episcopal robes still wore his coarse 
monk's frock. The nobles of Castile were agreed 
to intrust that kingdom's affairs in his hands at 
the death of Philip, and after the death of Ferdi- 
nand the regency devolved upon him; and in 
the midst of a turbulent nobility, he ruled as born 
to kingship. Charles continued him in power 
after he had assumed the kingdom, but made such 
lawless demands on the Spanish people as to 
bring Ximenes into ill favor among those for 
whom he administered. At the last he tasted 
that ingratitude so characteristic of Charles, and 
was virtually superseded in his regency, but had 
lived long enough to disclose a mind and force 
which entitle him to a high rank among the 
statesmen of the world. At the beginning of his 
reign, Charles had begun that series of ingrati- 
tudes and betrayals which ended only with his 



L.cfC. 



loo A Hkro and Some; Other FoIvK 

abdication. Charles V was a braggadocio, a ty- 
rant, a sensualist, without honor, and without 
nobility. The surprise grows on us, perceiving 
such a man courted, feted, honored, and arbiter 
of the destinies of Europe for thirty-seven years. 
I do not find one virtue in him. In Julius 
Caesar, a voluptuary and red with carnage, there 
were yet multitudinous virtues. We do not wonder 
men loved him and were glad to die for him. He 
had a soul, and honor, and remembrance of 
friendship. He was a genius, superlative and be- 
wildering. We can forget and forgive some things 
in such a man; but for such a sovereign as 
Charles V, what can we say, save that he was not 
so execrable as Philip H, his son? Charles, be- 
ing Flemish in birth, both Flanders and himself 
considered him less Spaniard than Belgian. He 
was Emperor first and King of Spain afterward; 
and in Flanders he set the pageant of his abdi- 
cation. 

In the court of Charles V, William the Silent 
was reared, being sent hither of his father, at 
Charles's request, to be brought up in the em- 
peror's household as a prospective public serv- 
ant, and was dear to the monarch, so far as any 
one could be dear to him ; and the emperor, at his 
abdication, leaned on Orange, then a youth of 
but twenty-one. To what an extent he compre- 
hended so humane a sentiment, Charles had been 



WiiviviAM TH3S Silent ioi 

tender with the Netherlands because of his hfe- 
long- relation to its people. He looked a Nether- 
lander rather than a Spaniard, and felt one, so 
that, so far as he showed favors, he showed them 
to this opulent people. Charles, with his many 
faults, had yet a rude geniality, which softened or 
seemed to soften his asperity toward those 
about him. 

In Philip, his son, was not even this slight 
redemptive quality. On October 25, 1555, at the 
age of fifty-five, worn out prematurely with 
lecherousness, gormandizing, lust of power, and 
recent defeats, Charles V abdicated in favor of 
his son, Philip. As they two stand on the dais 
at this solemn ceremony, it were well to take a 
close look at father and son. They are contrasts, 
as pronounced as valley and mountain^ and yet 
possess characteristics of evil in common. 
Charles was knit together like an athlete, his 
shoulders were broad and his chest deep ; his face 
was ugly to the measure of hideousness ; his 
lower jaw protruded so as to make it impossible 
for his teeth to meet, and his speech was for that 
reason barely intelligible. A voracious eater, an 
incessant talker, adventurous, a bom soldier, fond 
of tournament, spectacular in war and peace and 
abdication, now crippled in hands and legs, he 
stands, a picture of decrepitude, ready to give 
away a crown he can no longer wear. Philip, the 



I02 A Hkro and Some) Othkr Foi^k 

son, is thin and fragile to look upon, diminutive 
in stature; in face, resembling his father in 
"heavy, hanging lip, vast mouth, and monstrously 
protruding lower jaw. His complexion was fair, 
his hair light and thin^ his beard yellow, short, 
and pointed. He had the aspect of a Fleming, 
but the loftiness of a Spaniard. His demeanor in 
public was silent, almost sepulchral. . He looked 
habitually on the ground when he conversed, was 
chary of speech, embarrassed, and even suffering 
in manner." Such is the new king as we see him; 
and Motley has put our observations into words 
for us. But if in looks there were manifest 
resemblances and extreme divergencies, in charac- 
ter they were wide apart. Charles was soldier, 
first and always ; Philip was a man for the cabinet, 
having neither inclination nor ability for general- 
ship. To lead an army was Charles's pride and 
delight — things Philip could not and would not 
attempt. Charles was for the open air, sky, con- 
tinent; Philip was for the cloister, and spent his 
life immured as if he had been a monk. In 
Charles was bravado, impudence, intolerable ego- 
tism, atrocious lack of honor, but there was a dash 
about him as about Marshal Ney or Prince Joachin 
Murat ; Philip was stolid, vindictive, incapable of 
enthusiasm or friendship. Charles ruled Spain as 
a principality; Philip held the world as a princi- 
pality of Spain. As has been indicated, Charles 



WlIvIrlAM the: SlIvlBNT 103 

was Spanish in relationship and not in disposi- 
tion; PhiHp was Spaniard to the exclusion of all 
else. Charles, if he was anything, was brilliant; 
Philip was as lacking in color as a bank of winter 
clouds, no more conceiving brilliancy than he con- 
ceived of greatness of soul or manly honor. 

In Spanish character were chivalrous qualities, 
mixed with ferocity and pitiless cruelty. Pizarro 
and Cortes were attractive; we like to look at 
them a second time. Much we condemn, but 
much we admire. Their sagacity, their prowess, 
their heroic spirit, take us captive despite their 
baser qualities. In them was duplicity, revenge, 
bigotry, iheathenish cruelty; but these were not 
all the qualities the inventory discovered. In 
Philip, however, were all the Spanish villainies 
without the Spanish virtues. He is blessed with 
scarcely a redeeming quality. His excellencies 
were a stolid inability to believe himself defeated, 
which, had it been joined to patriotism and intel- 
ligent action, had risen to the heroic ; he was loyal to 
his convictions ; and he was painstakingly laborious, 
and worked in his cabinet like a paid clerk. In 
truth, his disposition for and ability to work are 
among the most marked instances in history. Not 
Julius Caesar himself worked with more unflagging 
industry. But Philip had no illuminated moments. 
His toil was blind, like a mole's progress. He 
read and annotated all state dispatches; wrote 



I04 A Hero and Some Other Foi,k 

many long epistles with his own hand^ eschewing 
secretarial aid. He had a mind capacious for 
minutiae ; was :olossally egotistical ; was as little cast 
down by defeat as elevated by triumph, which 
is in itself a quality of heroic mold, but viewed 
narrowly turns out to be imperturbable phlegmati- 
cism and self-assurance, which simply underrated 
disasters, making himself oblivious to them as if 
they did not exist. He was possessor of the 
greatest realm ever swayed by a single scepter. 
He afifected to be proprietor of the seas; he 
thought Flanders a garden to be tilled to supply 
his table, and its wealth, gold for him to squander 
on Armadas. Italian provinces were his, and 
Spain was his; and the Western Hemisphere, by 
his own daring assumption, and the generosity of 
the papal gift, and the toils of Ponce de Leon and 
de Soto and Coronado and Pizarro and Cortes, 
was his. Compared with the wide and bewilder- 
ing extent of his kingdom, the Roman Empire 
was a dukedom. His empire spurred him to 
world-dominion, and he used his patrimony and 
its fabulous wealth to attempted enforcement of 
his claim to the sovereignty of England and West- 
ern Europe. His ambition was in nothing less 
than Alexander's, but his conception of means 
adequate to campaigns was meager. A task he 
could see and a kingdom he' could desire, but 
adequacy of preparation for world-conquest never 



WlIvIwIAM THK S1I.ENT 105 

crept into his thought. He was as niggardly in 
supplying his generals and armies as Queen Eliza- 
beth, and all but as voluble in abuse of his serv- 
ants in the field or cabinet, and as thankless to 
those who had wrought his will. Parma^ and 
Requesens, and Don John, and Alva, he drove 
almost frantic by his excessive demands and ex- 
pectations, coupled with his entire inadequacy in 
preparation and supplies. His soldiers were al- 
ways on the point of mutiny for food, or clothing, 
or pay, or all together. However, this ought in 
fairness to be said, that the only contemporary 
Government which did pay its soldiers pro'mptly 
and fairly was the Netherlands, one reason worth 
weighing why, under Prince Maurice in particular, 
Flemish armies made such vigorous head against 
Spanish aggressions. 

Just two people Philip gave consideration to — 
himself and the pope. His narrow nature, while 
not capable of enthusiasm, was capable of a tena- 
cious and unflagging loyalty. What in a manly- 
spirit or in a martyr would have bloomed into 
nobility, devotion, and self-sacrifice, in a man like 
Philip became a settled cruelty and bigotry which 
finds few parallels in the annals of the world. 
He was a creature of the Church, as he conceived 
all in his dominions were creatures to him. 
Free will and the right to conviction he did not 
claim for himself and would not consider for 



io6 A Hero and Somk Other Foi,k 

others. The world was an autocracy, universal, 
necessary, the pope as chief tyrant and PhiHp 
under-lord — ^^he must obey the pope; the people 
must obey him. To Philip these conclusions were 
axiomatic, and therefore not subjects for debate. 
That all his subjects did not readily concede to 
him the right to be the director of their conscience 
was looked upon as unreasoning stubbornness, to 
be punished with block and rack, and prison and 
stake. 

Philip is anomalous. We can not get into a 
mind like his. Statesman he was not; for the 
nurture of national wealth, such as Cromwell and 
Caesar planned for, he was incapable of. His 
idea of statesmanship was that his kingdom was 
a cask, into which he should insert a spigot and 
draw. This was government of an ideal order, 
Philip being judge. The divine right of kings 
was a foregone conclusion, antagonism to which 
was heresy. Here let us not blame Philip ; for 
this was the temper of his era, and to have antici- 
pated in him larger views than those of his con- 
temporaries is not just. To this notion was his 
whole nature keyed. He commanded the Nether- 
lands to be faithful Catholics. What more was 
needed? Let this be the end. So reasoned the 
Spanish autocrat; and fealty to religious convic- 
tions on his subjects' part Seemed to him noth- 
ing but settled obstinacy, to be burned out with 



WlIvIylAM THK SlI,:eNT 107 

martyrs' fires or cut out with swords swung by 
Alva's cruel hands. 

Philip was the ideal bigot. How far bigotry 
is native to the soul m'ay well be a question for 
grave discussion, demanding possibly more atten- 
tion than has been accorded it hitherto. And 
how far is bigotry to be looked on as a vice? 
Though this question will be laughed down, as 
if to ask it were to stultify the asker; but not so 
fast, since bigotry is not all bad. To hold an 
opinion is considered a virtue. To hold an opinion 
of righteousness against all odds for conscience' 
sake, we rightly account heroism. Is not a lover 
or a patriot a bigot? Or if not, where does he 
miss of being? We are to hold opinion and not 
become opinionated, a thing discovered to be 
difficult in an extreme degree. 

Bigotry is an excess of a virtue, and to pass 
from conscientiousness to bigotry is not a long 
nor difficult journey. All views are not equally 
true. This every sane mind holds as self-evident. 
There is a liberalism at this point which would 
run, if let go its logical course, to the sophist 
fallacy that truth did not exist, and therefore one 
view was as just as another — an attitude repugnant 
to all fine ethical natures. Now, conceiving we 
have the truth, we must, in reason and in con- 
science, be in so far intoler.ant to those who an- 
tagonize the truth. The theist is intolerant toward 



io8 A H^RO AND Some; Other Foi<k 

the atheist; truth is intolerant toward falsehood; 
good is intolerant toward evil; God intolerant 
toward sin. Righteousness is always intolerant; 
and any one advocating unlimited intellectual 
tolerance is breaking down the primary distinctions 
between falsehood and truth. Some things are 
true and their opposites false. Jesus put the case 
in an immortal phrase : ''Ye can not serve God 
and Mammon." The query, then, is. Where does 
this intolerance of truth pass into bigotry? For 
I think it easy to see that this passage is but a 
step, nor is the dividing line so easy to discover 
as we might wish. Ask this question, to illustrate 
our dilemma, "What is the difference between 
legitimate competition and monopoly?" An an- 
swer rises to the lip instanter, but is no sooner 
given than perceived to be invalid. A like close- 
ness of relation exists between the virtue of in- 
tolerance and the vice of intolerance, a synonym 
of which is bigotry. Virtue is intolerant of vice, 
and there are great verities in the kingdom of 
God to be held if life must pay the price of their 
retention. This is the explanation of martyrs, 
whose office is to witness to truth by cross and 
sword and fagot. The Reformation stands for 
the right of free judgment in things appertaining 
to religion, thought, and politics. Luther was 
liberator of Europe, and through Europe of the 
world, in the three departments where life lives 



Wii,i,iAM the; Sii<e;nt 109 

its thrilling story. A tolerant intolerance holds 
with strong hand to truth, but demands for others 
•what it demands for itself; namely, the right to 
interpret and follow truth so far as such pro- 
cedure does not interfere with the rights of an- 
other. Tolerance of this sort does not destroy, 
nor yet surrender, conviction. Bigotry demands 
the enforcement of its opinions upon all, and is 
a reign of compulsion. Applying this argument 
to Philip, a noteworthy bigot, we see how it was 
his right to be a Roman Catholic and to be a 
zealous propagandist, since kingship does not 
hinder a king from being a man, with a man's 
religious rights and duties. Philip's fault lay in 
his not allowing to others the right of religious 
freedom himself possessed. He stands, to this 
hour, a perfect specimen of intolerance. 

Under sovereignty such as this was William 
the Silent citizen. William, Prince of Orange, was 
bom in Nassau, April 2.-^, 1533, and was assas- 
sinated at the convent of St. Agatha, in Delft, 
July 10, 1584, when a trifle over fifty-one years 
ol age. Let us get our chronological bearings 
accurately: Luther died in 1546; Lepanto was 
fought in 1 571 ; the Massacre of St. Bartholomew 
occurred in 1572; the Invincible Armada was 
destroyed in 1588; Philip was crowned king in 
October of 1555, and died at the Escurial in 1598; 
the Spanish Inquisition was established in 1480 



no A Hkro and Some Other FoIvK 

by Ferdinand and Isabella; the Edict of Nantes 
was promulgated in 1598; Queen Elizabeth 
Tudor ascended her throne in 1558; America 
received her first permanent colony in 1585, at St. 
Augustine, Florida. From this assemblage of 
dates, we see in what a ferment of momentous 
civil, religious, and political events the Prince of 
Orange found his life cast. We may not choose 
our time to live, not yet our time to die ; but some 
eras are spacious above others, not length, but 
achievement, making an age illustrious. William 
the Silent's age was a maelstrom of events, and 
there were no quiet waters; and this appears 
certain: The dominant force of those turbulent 
times was religious, by which I mean that religion 
is the key of all movements, politics being shaped 
by theological dogmas and purposes. These 
dates certify to the omnipresence of religious 
movement; for the Inquisition, Lepanto, the great 
Armada, the Edict of Nantes, the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, are all ecclesiastical in intent, by 
which is not at all meant they were good, but were 
perverted religious views, in which human wicked- 
ness, ambition, and bigotry pre-empted religion, 
and used it as a medium of expression, and in 
turn were used by the thing they bad fostered. 
No moTe prevalent misconception prevails than 
that religion is the cause of outrageous violence, 
disorder, and misconduct; the truth being, rather,,, 



WllvIvIAM THS SlI<KNT III 

men's passions, under guise of religion, rush their 
own wanton course. In this particular era of his- 
tory, all movements were religious, as has been 
shown; and Philip thought himself the apostle of 
rehgion, chosen of God, and was used by the 
Roman CathoHc Church, and, as a wise historian 
affirms, "In fanatical enthusiasm for Catholicism, 
he was surpassed by no man who ever lived." His 
religion and his ambition were fellow-conspirators. 
Philip II of Spain was a Roman Catholic fanatic ; 
Charles IX of France was a weak mind, of no 
definite religious conviction, but used by the 
Catholics to bring about the massacre of seventy 
thousand Huguenots ; Henry IV of France was 
probably a Huguenot in genuine feeling, but a 
political trimmer, a daring and brilliant soldier, a 
frenzied devotee of women, religion giving him 
small concern, and his change from Huguenotism 
to Catholicism a circumstance as trifling as the 
exchange of his hunter's paraphernalia for court 
apparel ; Queen Elizabeth was as nearly devoid 
of 'religious instincts as is possible for a woman, 
though her purposes and position in politics drove 
her to the Protestant cause; William of Orange 
was born a Protestant, reared a Catholic, first in 
the household of the Regent of the Low coun- 
tries, and afterward at the court of Charles V, 
suffered revulsion of sentiment under the unthink- 
able atrocities of the Inquisition as carried on in 



112 A He;ro and Some; Othbr Foi,k 

the Netherlands, till at last he became a Protest- 
ant of the most pronounced and honest type. 

In Prince William's time, modern Europe was 
in the alembic, a circumstance which makes his 
epoch so engrossing to the student of modem his- 
tory. Protestantism became a new political, social, 
intellectual, and religious order. Even apart 
from his religious significance, Martin Luther is 
the marked figure of the sixteenth century. Co- 
lumbus discovered a New World; Luther peopled 
it with civil and religious forces. Puritanism was 
the flower of that earlier-day Protestantism. 
Besides, the Walloons settled New Amsterdam; 
the Huguenots, the Carolinas ; the Anglicans, 
Virginia ; the Lutherans, New Sweden. From 
the standpoint of statesmanship, Luther was 
shaping peoples for a New World, and was the 
commanding personality of those stormy years in 
which, like a warrior who never knew fatigue, he 
fought the battles of the living God. Unquestion- 
ably^, the Reformation meant liberty in conscience, 
intellect and citizenship, which are the quint- 
essence of modern civilization. In those years, 
during which William the Silent was a prodigious 
force. Protestantism was troubling the waters. 
New religious ideas must ultimate in new political 
institutions, of which the Dutch Republic was a 
sort of first draft, and. the United States of 
America an edited and perfected draft. 



WlIvI^IAM THE SlIvENT II3 

Protestantism was in justifiable revolt against 
Roman Catholicism, a foe to progress and liberty 
in religion, then and now, and now not less than 
then. It was intolerance run mad, whose method 
was the Inquisition. One can not say a good word 
for this system, where Jesuitism finds home and 
inspiration, where the end justifies the means, and 
any diabolism passes for saintliness if done for the 
advancement of the "true faith." Yet here, as al- 
ways, we must be on guard, supposing this to 
be a fruit of religion ; rather is it selfish human 
nature, taking an ecclesiastical system to do 
business in, thus availing itself of the religious 
impulse in the soul to work out a purely earthly 
interest. Early Christianity, as all pure Chris- 
tianity^ presses Christ's method of making appeal 
to the individual, impressing him with a sense 
of his sin and his lost estate; of the necessity 
of repentance; of salvation from sin by faith in a 
Divine Christ. When Christianity came to the 
throne with Constantine, when ultimately masses 
of people were baptized on compulsion, Christian- 
ity took on the pomp and paraphernalia of hea- 
thenism, so as to make appeal to the sensuous 
element in heathen nature; in a word, Christianity 
became as miich or more heathen than Christian, 
and this mongrel of Christianity and heathenism 
is Roman Catholicism. Root, stem, and branch, 
it Is hostile to the Word of God, and, as every 



I '' 



114 A Hkro and Somk Othe;r Folk 

such system must do, darkened the consciences 
of men. We may not forget, however, its essen- 
tial rehgious and scholastic services in earlier 
years, nor that it has nurtured some of tihe saints 
among the centuries. Catholicism has a basis of 
Christianity, and, could the excrescences be hewn 
away, and this foundation be again discovered, 
then for Roman Catholicism would dawn a new 
and greater era. But as the system stands, it af- 
fected temporal sovereignty, it humbled kings, and 
gave away empires. Pope Leo X was not a bad 
man, being so far superior to Alexander XII as 
to preclude comparison. Many popes had been so 
vile as to have shocked even the moral indiffer- 
ence of those times ; but Leo X, son of Lorenzo 
the Magnificent, heir of the traditions in com- 
panionship and the humanities which had made 
Florence illustrious, — Leo, cultivated, brilliant, 
clean in his personal life, had assembled around 
him men reasonably good. His aesthetic inclina- 
tions were running him deeply in debt, and to fill 
the bankrupt treasury, His Holiness commissioned 
Tetzel to sell indulgences — a practice repugnant to 
moral instinct, to the dignity of the Church, and 
the honor of our God, and yet a practice contin- 
ued by Romanism in our own day and under our 
own eyes. To suppose that Romanism has re- 
formed is current with intelligent persons, though 
no supposition could be more erroneous. All those 



WlIvLIAM THK SlIvKNT 115 

beliefs prevalent in the days of Luther are afifirmed 
at this hour, with the addition of the doctrine of 
papal infallibility and the immaculate conception. 
To-day indulgences are sold in the United States, 
noticeably so in Arizona; and a son of a bishop 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, because his 
name chanced to have a foreign flavor, was writ- 
ten to and offered one year's indulgences for twenty- 
five dollars ! Catholicism has not changed. The 
Inquisition was abolished in Spain by Napoleon 
in 1808, re-established after the Spaniards had re- 
assumed their government, and finally abolished 
by the Cortes in 1820. The system of Catholicism 
is leprous, and in the age of William the Silent 
had power and political ascendency so as to com- 
mand rack and fagot, and dungeons so deep as 
that from them no cry could reach any ear save 
God's ; and in the person of the mean, sullen, and 
indefatigable Philip bad apt instrument. 

When the Prince of Orange was ambassador 
in the court of France, Henry II, supposing him 
to be privy to his master's plans, on a hunting- 
excursion, casually mentioned a private treaty 
with Alva to join with Philip to exterminate 
heresy from their joint kingdoms. Small wonder 
if Orange, riding beside French royalty that day, 
grew pitiful toward unsuspicious, doomed thou- 
sands, and pitiless toward Philip and his Spanish 
soldiers and followers, or that, to use his own 



ii6 A Hero and Some; Othe;r Foi,e 

words from the famous "Apology," "From that 
moment I determined in earnest to clear the 
Spanish venom from the land." Watch his flushed 
face; his eyes, like coals taken fresh from an altar 
of vengeance; his hand, nervously fingering his 
sword-hilt; his form, dilating as if for the first 
time he guessed he had come to manhood, — and 
I miss in reckoning if we are not looking on the 
person of a patriot. For this William of Orange 
and Nassau is William the Silent, keeping his 
dreadful secret; but keeping the secret, too, that 
the Inquisition and Catholicism, and Spain, and 
Philip have an enemy whose hostility can only be 
silenced by a bullet. The day the French king 
gave William this fatal confidence was an epoch 
in the life of William and of Europe. 

His life divides into two periods, this dialogue 
between himself and Henry II closing the one 
and opening the other. With that fatal confidence 
his youth ended and his manhood began. Get a 
closer view of his youth. From his fifteenth to 
his twenty-first year he was in constant attend- 
ance at the court of Charles V, who loved, 
trusted, and honored him. He was at this age, 
rich, frivolous^ spendthrift ; in short, a petted noble- 
man of the greatest monarch in Christendom. 
He had evident gifts ; was generous to lavishness ; 
mortgaged his estate to* gratify his luxurious 
tastes ; was given to political expediency, caring 



Wiivi^iAM the; Sii,:e;nt 117 

less for conviction than popularity with his sover- 
eign ; wearing his rehgion, if he may be said to 
have possessed any, as Hghtly as a lady's favor; 
lacking in reverence, he was flippant rather than 
irreHgioiis, but a youth of fashion, pleasure, and 
luxury. Charles V, discovering in him extraor- 
dinary parts, invested him, at the age of twenty- 
two, with command of the imperial forces before 
Marienburg, and at his abdication leaned affec- 
tionately on William's shoulder. Count Egmont 
alone excepted, Orange was the most distinguished 
Flemish nobleman who passed from Charles to 
Philip as part of the emperor's bequest. Early 
in Philip's reign, Orange was made one of the 
king's counselors and Knight of the Golden 
Fleece, at that time most coveted and honorable 
of any military knighthood. At the age of 
twenty-six, he was one of the peace commissioners 
between Henry II and Philip II_, and at this time 
he came into possession of that secret which 
changed his life. Here ends the youth of William 
of Nassau. Let us get this man more clearly 
in the eye. He was above middle height, spare, 
sinewy ; dark in complexion ; ihad gentle brown 
eyes, auburn hair and beard; face thin, nose 
aquiline; head small, but well formed; his hair 
luxuriant, his beard trimmed to a point; about his j 
neck the superb collar of the Golden Fleece. He 
is married, and his home is Breda. 



ii8 A He;ro and Som:^ Othkr FoIvK 

Between the young king and his Flemish 
Stadtholder was never any warmth of feeHng. 
When Orange, pursuant to ihis resolution formed 
in the French king's presence, spurred the States 
to demand the removal of the Spanish soldiers 
from the Netherlands, with a pertinacity dogged 
and changeless till the king, in sheer desperation, 
acquiesced in the just demand, though with a 
c^hagrin of spirit toward the instrument of his 
defeat which became settled hatred, and never 
lifted from his heart for a moment in those long 
succeeding years, when the king, like a recluse in 
the Escurial, brooded over his defeat. His troops 
forced from Flemish territories, Philip himself de- 
parted from a region he had never loved and 
had scarcely tolerated, departed, not to return 
any more, save by proxy of fire and sword, and 
cruel soldiery, and more cruel generals — the piti- 
less Parmas and Alvas — and departing, he em- 
braced the other noblemen with such cold warmth 
as was native to him, but upbraided Orange bit- 
terly for the action of the States, and when 
Orange replied the action was not his, but the 
States-General, Philip, beside himself with rage, 
cried, "Not the States, but you ! you ! you !" Thus 
King Philip passed into Spain, and the Prince of 
Orange into the second era of his life. 

Macaulay has written the life of William III 
with such warmth, glow, fullness, and art as to 



WiL,iyiAM THK Silent 119 

have rendered other biographies superfluous. The 
history of Wilham III was the history of England 
during his reign. He was England at its best. 
William the Silent was the Netherlands at their best. 
Motley has written "The Rise of the Dutch Re- 
public," and in so doing has written a glowing 
narrative of the origin of the Netherland Republic ; 
and has besides, in the same breath, given a bi- 
ography of William the Silent. What nobler 
eulogy could be pronounced than to say a man's 
life was his country's history during his lifetime? 
Motley's thrilling narrative is the worthiest life of 
William written. Read Motley, and the last great- 
est word shall have been told you regarding this 
hero of the sixteenth century. In Prescott's 
"Philip the Second" may be found an incomplete 
characterization of the prince, without the unfavor- 
able attitude toward Philip or the laudatory view 
of William presented in Motley. These two 
American historians have approached their theme 
with such ampleness of scholastic research and 
elaborate access to and use of the correspondence 
of Margaret, Parma, Alva, Granvelle, Don John 
of Austria, William, and Philip, as practically to 
exhaust the sources of information on this tragic 
reign, at the same time shutting off much oi pos- 
sibility from the future historian. William has at 
last, in Motley, found a biographer for whom any 
illustrious character might be thankful. So elabo- 



I20 A He;ro and Some; Othkr FoIvK 

rate and complete were these researches that Miss 
Putnam, in her "WilHam the Silent/' has scarcely 
developed a single new fact, and has in all cases 
conceded the thoroughness and sufficiency of 
Motley's investigations. The present writer's 
apology for attempting what has been done so 
incomparably well is, that he feels an essay of 
moderate length, which, because of its brevity, 
may find an audience, is a desideratum in English 
literature, this essay to point out the heroic pro- 
portions of William; enough so, if may be, to 
lend eagerness to those who read, so they may 
be decoyed into perusing Motley's noble histories. 
I would help a reader of this essay to see the theater 
and actors, and to that end lift this curtain. 

Philip having, on August 26, 1559, sailed from 
Flushing, Spainward, William's lifework properly 
began. At this date, his attitude has not devel- 
oped, but stands as a block of marble a sculptor 
has chiseled enough to show a statue is intended, 
but not sufficiently to disclose the sculptor's pur- 
pose. One thing alone was definite and unalter- 
able, to combat the introduction of the Inquisi- 
tion and the extermination of the Protestant 
Netherlanders by aid from the Spanish soldiery. 
The first checkmate given Philip's nefarious 
scheme was when the States-General compelled 
his removal of the troops, 'though at this time 
William was still Catholic in religion and a loyal 



WlIylylAM THK SiI.e;nT 121 

subject of Philip, being in no sense a revolutionist. 
He was easily the first citizen of the Netherlands ; 
twenty-six years of age ; not matured, but matur- 
ing ; not faultless, but in process of being fashioned 
for a distinguished career of patriotism and 
catholicity. Our full selves bloom slowly. Our 
life is no mushroom, but a tree, and a tree requires 
long growth-periods. Orange was so. A grave, 
moral, and patriotic purpose in itself suffices to 
shape a career of grandeur and service. Had he 
been told he would die a Protestant and a rebel, 
he would have been instant to deny the charge, 
and this through no duplicity^ but from lack of 
knowledge of his own soul temper, coupled with 
an inability to forecast a stormy future. We can 
not walk by sight in action and politics any more 
than in religion — a thing the prince found out as 
the turbulent years passed. He has been vehe- 
mently accused of duphcity. He has been depicted 
as hypocrite and plotter against his rightful 
sovereign. I find no marks of this on him. 
That he had ambition is not to be argued; but 
ambition is no sin if worthily directed. He did 
things not consonant with our ethics, belonging, 
in that sense, to his age, an age of diplomatic 
duplicity. He did not tell all he knew. He had 
in his pay the king's private secretary, and received 
a copy of any letter the king wrote ; and when at 
last the secretary's treason was discovered, he 



122 A HSRO AND SOMK OTH^R FoLK 

paid the penalty of his perfidy by being torn in 
pieces by four horses ; yet bribery of employees 
was common then, and was a practice of every 
potentate, and was what P'hilip did in every court 
in Christendom. Absolute fealty was all but 
unknown. Each man was believed to have his 
price, and the belief, in most instances, was not 
erroneous. Besides, William was in a state of per- 
petual war with Philip, and war makes its own 
code, and justifies the otherwise unjustifiable, and 
but for this subtle surveillance of the king's in- 
tention, no stand could have been made against his 
treachery and encroachments ; for he was the sum 
of duplicities, deceiving everybody^ those nearest 
to him and most intimately in his counsels no 
less than his foes. Duplicity was native to him 
as respiration. Granvelle, who in treacherous 
diplomacy was not inferior to Macchiavelli, him 
Philip deceived. Such a king, Wilham met by 
finesse and deception against finesse and decep- 
tion. To judge a statesman of the sixteenth cen- 
tury by the ethics of the nineteenth century is 
studied injustice. He is accused of evasion in his 
marriage with Anne of Saxony, and the accusa- 
tion is, in my conviction, just; but probably at 
that juncture in his career his religious notions 
were in a state of ferment, himself as yet knowing 
not what he would be. In any case, however, to 
use the words of Putnam, "From the expediency 



WlI.I,IAM THK SiI<e;nT 123 

of his youth he grew gradually to a high stand- 
ard of ihonor." In the stress of the battle for 
liberty, when he was reduced to counting his very 
garments, his luxurious habits slipped from him, 
and disinterestedness grew upon him. Cromwell 
was formed when first we saw him ; Orange grows 
before our eyes, as we have watched the blooming 
of some sacred flower. Orange was no saint. 
Who so thinks him, thinks amiss. He had 
manifold faults, as what man has not? But 
that the growing purpose of his life was heroic 
and single, and that he devoted a laborious man- 
hood to the enfranchisement of his country and 
religion, no fair historian can deny. His career 
naturally oscillated between the general and the 
statesman, the statesman being in the ascendant. 
Some men are primarily soldiers ; secondarily, 
statesmen; as was Sulla or Marlborough. In 
others, the statesman stands first, the soldier in 
them being second, as in Julius Caesar, whose wid- 
est achievements always spring out of his states- 
manship as naturally as a plant out of the soil. 
At this point, Csesar and William the Silent 
touch, by which is not meant that in either field 
William approximates Csesar; for Julius Csesar is 
one of the few greatest products of the world. 
William fought because he must; he was states- 
man because he would. 

Philip never swerved from his purpose; but 



124 ^ He;ro and Some; Oi'her Foi^k 

though his Armadas were wrecked and his 
treasure galleons seized, in his cabinet he set 
himself to rigorous purpose, demanding impos- 
sibilities of his commanders, paying his soldiers 
ill if at all, equipping his expeditions insuffi- 
ciently, but never failing in his demands on 
his servants. In harmony with this dogged per- 
sistency of purpose, he never changed from his 
plan of making the Netherlands Roman Catholic, 
giving his subjects' scruples no thought. He 
had commanded — let that suffice; his instruments 
Margaret, and Alva, and Requesens, and Don 
John, and Parma, and the Inquisition, with which 
atrocious instrument of propagandism the reader 
is doubtless familiar. To 1546 no symptom of dis- 
loyalty toward the king is visible in William; he 
was jubilant rather, feeling the grievances could 
be remedied if only Cardinal Granvelle's authority 
were lessened. His own involved finances troubled 
him, and to them he gave such vigilant 'attention 
as to reduce his debts to the point where they 
gave him no concern. Above financial difficulties, 
were those connected with his wife, Anne, who 
proved half-mad and wholly lacking in virtue, 
though, in truth, her life was far from being a 
joyous one, if such were possible to a character 
like hers. How much of blame attaches to the 
prince for this estrangement can not now be 
discovered; suffice it to say, no lack in his con- 



Wii^i^iAM the; SiIvKnt 125 

duct could excuse lack of virtue in her. William 
was lonely, and writes his brother Louis to 
come to him, if only for a fortnight. So far as 
surfaces may indicate, his relations with Philip 
were at this period placid^ and himself loyal, only 
he is alert always to avert any encroachment of 
tyranny. Philip, undeterred by all his fair words 
and promises, supported by royal honor, spoken 
to Count Egmont, who had been sent to the Es- 
curial to make formal protest in behalf of the 
nobles against religious persecution, not so much 
as a question of tolerance as a question of wisdom, 
seeing all the nobles were sincere Catholics, and 
the further impossibility of enforcing such an 
edict, — Philip, in the face of these advices and in 
the face of his promises, sent, in 1565, peremptory 
orders to Margaret of Parma, Regent of the 
Netherlands, to proceed against heretics. So 
Philip's duplicity was revealed and the die cast. 
One thing was fortunate : the worst was known. 
Protests poured in, a veritable flood — protests 
against all Inquisitorial methods in a land accus- 
tomed to liberty — the prince, meantime, remaining 
moderate, to the exasperation of the Protestants, 
whose blood boiled at the prospect of an Inquisi- 
tion in their midst and for their extermination. 
From Breda, William watched evils take shape, 
his very calm giving him advantage in forming 
accurate judgment of the magnitude of opposition 



126 A Hkro and Some Othe;r Folk 

on which he might rely, concurring in a remon- 
strance drawn up in March of 1566; and in the 
latter part of this month he went to a meeting of 
the Council at Brussels, where he spoke frankly 
against the measures of the king, urging modera- 
tion on this ground, "To see a man burn for his 
opinion does harm to the people, and does noth- 
ing to maintain religion;" and in the ensuing 
April, Brederode presented the remonstrance, 
Margaret the Regent replying she could not — 
i. e., dared not — suspend the Inquisition. Thus 
were the famous "Beggars" ushered into history. 
Prince William, nothing revolutionary in char- 
acter, still counseled quiet till all his hopes were 
frustrated and all his fears realized, when, on 
August 1 8th, in an annual festival of Antwerp 
Catholicism, a tumult arose over the wooden 
Virgin, and rebellion against Philip II was ac- 
tually inaugurated ; for from this hour the Con- 
federates armed and strengthened themselves 
against the policy and duplicity of Margaret the 
regent and Philip the king, having accurate 
knowledge of the character of each. Orange is 
still on the side of submission, and Motley, than 
whom there is no better authority, thinks Sep- 
tember the month of his considering seriously 
forcibly resisting Philip's encroachments ; for now, 
through a trusted messenger, he puts on guard 
Count Egmont, whose sanguine temperament leads 



1 



WlIvIvIAM THB SlI,:eNT 127 

him still to put reliance in Philip's fair words. 
Evidently we have come to the beginning of the 
end. Erelong, William of Orange will be a rebel. 
The second period of William's life, stretching 
from Henry H's revelation to the prince's death, 
is divisible into two parts — part first reaching to 
the outbreak at Antwerp, in which, though on 
the defensive, he was yet actually loyal; part 
second beginning with the Antwerp outbreak, 
when he saw Philip clearly, and as a patriot, and 
loving the Netherlands more than he loved a for- 
eign and tyrannical king, he, in a lesser or greater 
degree, meditated rebellion. We are now come to 
the last stage in the journey of the prince. Events 
had more doom in them than he or any man could 
guess^ and marched on like an army at double 
quick. In March, 1567, came Philip's order com- 
manding every Flemish functionary (each of whom 
had taken oath at the beginning of his reign) to 
take a new oath, demanding "every man in his serv- 
ice, without any exception whatever, should now 
renew his oath of fealty," said oath reading, "De- 
manding a declaration from every person in office 
as to his intention to carry out His Majesty's will, 
without Hmitation or restriction," which William, 
refusing to take, ofifered his resignation to the 
regent; and the breach was made. On April 10, 
1567, Orange wrote Philip his intention of with- 
drawing from the Royal Council, and on the day 



128 A He;ro and Somej Othkr Foi^k; 

following, leaving his office vacant, departed from 
Antwerp for Breda; and the breach was complete, 
and William the Silent was calendared as a traitor. 
In May, Alva set out from Spain with an army 
to subdue the rebellious Flemings; and Philip, 
sinister,, pugnacious, relentless, was seen a Hfe- 
size figure. Philip was now himself. In Septem- 
ber, Prince Maurice was born and christened with 
Lutheran rites, the Prince of Orange thus begin- 
ning his hegira from the Church of Rome. In 
the spring of 1568, Orange formally took up arms 
against these Spanish invaders ; and in October, 
1573, he formally became a Protestant, thus be- 
coming a civil and ecclesiastical refugee. 

Thus far events have been given in their 
chronological order, a process needful no longer, 
the steps having been shown by which William of 
Orange, a Catholic prince, loyal to and trusted by 
Charles V, has come to be a rebel against the 
Church and Philip II, with a price put upon his 
head. His remaining life is one long, bloody, tire- 
less, valorous, magnificent, though often hopeless, 
effort to consummate the freeing of his native 
land from ecclesiastical and civil tyranny. 

William the Silent must be studied as soldier, 
for such he unquestionably was. Men are best 
pictured by comparisons. William was cool, de- 
liberate, judicial, eloquent- on occasion, but not 
magnetic. His qualities were not such as blaze 



William the; Silknt 129 

in a battle-charge, such as Marshal Murat knew 
to lead. Those methods were entirely foreign to 
him. He has even been accused of cowardice, 
though, so far as I can judge, without justice. 
His circumstances — the lack of armies ; the slug- 
gard patriotism of his countrymen ; his constant 
negotiations, not to say intrigues, with many 
persons ; his perpetual efforts to raise moneys to 
equip forces to carry on the patriotic warfare — 
seem to have left him scant time to lead armies 
in person. His retirement to Breda on his first 
break with his sovereign was deliberate, open, and 
manly. If naturahy timid, to quote Motley, "he 
was certainly possessed of perfect courage at last. 
In siege and battle, in the deadly air of pestilential 
cities, in the long exhaustion of mind and body, 
which comes from unduly protracted labor and 
anxiety, amid the countless conspiracies of as- 
sassins, he was daily exposed to death in every 
shape. Within two years, five different attempts 
against his life had been discovered. Rank and 
fortune were offered to any malefactor who would 
compass his murder. He had already been shot 
through the head and almost mortally wounded. 
Under such circumstances, even a brave man 
might have seen a pitfall at every step, a dagger 
in every hand^ and poison in every cup. On the 
contrary, he was ever cheerful, and hardly took 
more precaution than usual." Surely these are 
9 



130 A Hkro and Some; Othsr Folk 

not marks of cowardice. Compare William with 
Henry IV of France, and Count Egmont, hero 
of St. Quentin's. They were soldiers, never 
statesmen. Henry was goaded by impulse. He, 
on the now classic field of Ivry, calling his soldiers 
to follow where his white plume leads, is a hero- 
soldier figure; and Egmont, generous, impulsive, 
magnetic, chivalrous, devoid of forecast, had, at 
St. Quentin's, administered such defeat as 
"France had not experienced since the battle of 
Agincourt." He was a brilliant soldier, and burnt 
like lightnings before men's eyes. Both these 
commanders were dramatic, and compelled vic- 
tory, so as to merit the rank of soldiers forever. 
William the Silent falls not in such company. 
His campaigns were not brilliant, though many 
generals who are accounted great are devoid of 
this quality. He was not the soldier his son 
Maurice was, who was properly ranked as a 
brilliant soldier, and in quality of action takes his 
place beside Henry IV and Count Egmont. His 
soldiership, however, monopolized his genius, 
using all its fire. Fortunate it was for the Nether- 
lands that William was more statesman than sol- 
dier; but equally fortunate for them that he was 
enough of a soldier to bafifle Requesens, Alva, 
and Parma. We measure power by obstacles mas- 
tered. Apply this test to' Orange, and he will 
stand huge of bulk as mountain ranges ; for Alva 



WlIvlrlAM THK SlIvEJNT I3I 

and Parma were among the chief generals of their 
century, with royal authority and equipment 
(inadequate enough, truly, but still an equipment), 
with royal credit and prestige, with the taxes of 
the provinces to supply the exchequer; and these 
generals Orange met, hampered with lack of 
arms, men, funds, moral support; with mercenary 
troops, unreliable and mutinous, hired much of 
the time with moneys raised by mortgaging his 
o\vn estates, and backed up by a supine and a 
divided people, himself clothed with no authority 
compelling subordination, and, with the excep- 
tion of his brother Louis (who was slain at the 
battle of Mookerheyde), without a single captain 
of generous military capacity, — with such odds, 
seemingly insuperable, William of Orange met 
the chief captains of his generation, and made 
head against them, creeping forward, as the tides 
do, till they own the shore. When these facts 
are co-ordinated, his achievements become phe- 
nomenal. His resiliency was tremendous. In 
some significant regards, his military career finds 
parallel in General Washington. 

In a remarkable particular, William the Silent 
resembles Quintus Sertorius; namely, that each, 
while rebel against his Government, fought in 
the name of his Government. Mommsen says: 
"It may be doubted whether any Roman states- 
man of the earlier period can be compared in 



132 A He;ro and Some; Otheje. Foi,k 

point of versatile talent to Sertorius," who, though 
in rebellion against Rome, did all he did in the 
name of Rome, fought battles, levied tributes, 
enfranchised cities, remodeled communities ; in 
short, did in Spain what, in a later period, Julius 
Cassar did in Gaul. William the Silent for years 
carried on his warfare in Philip's name, tacitly 
assuming that Philip's agents were at fault, and 
not Philip's self, and that himself was the king's 
true representative in the Low Countries. Will- 
iam made war in the king's name, Granvelle, in 
the earlier stages of the rebellion, being named 
as the agent of oppression ; while, in fact, that re- 
markable man and sagacious statesman was hope- 
lessly subordinate to his master, though harmonious 
with him. As yet, the Netherlands had not 
conceived the extent of Philip's tyranny, bigotry, 
and duplicity. Another similarity between the 
Dutch and Roman outlaw was, that both were 
statesmen rather than generals, having command- 
ing outlook on their eras ; and although each was, 
perforce, captain of a host, his signal service was 
as shaper of a realm. 

Here lies William the Silent's chosen might. 
He was bom diplomat. Philip himself kept 
State secrets be'hind no more impenetrable reserve 
than William. His statesmanship was wrought 
into his patriotism like glancing colors in silk; 
and he stands a patriot whose services no one can 



Wii<i,iAM The; Sii.Ent 133 

overestimate, and a champion of liberty the most 
vaHant and sagacious known prior to the Puritan 
Rebellion. Seventeen provinces constituted the 
Netherlands. By the pacification of Ghent, in 
1576, a union was formed among certain of these, 
in which, for the first time, rehgious tolerance 
was asserted and applied — Catholics to allow 
Protestants to worship as they would, and Prot- 
estants to do the like by Catholics. This pacifi- 
cation, in its specifications, was an unheard-of 
gain for Protesantism and for liberty, and consti- 
tuted William's chief triumph up to that date. 
The Netherlands were peopled with varied popu- 
lations, with all but innumerable conflicting in- 
terests and dispositions, so much so that union 
seemed impossible. This is partial explanation 
w^hy Prince William sufiered more from the in- 
action and suspicion of his own countrymen than 
from all Philip's machinations. His patience was 
something godlike. No people known to his- 
tory appear to less advantage or show less love 
of liberty, or even common self-respect, than 
these Belgic provinces through many years. 
They were so abject, so schooled to suffer and 
resent nothing, that even the horrors of the 
Spanish Inquisition did not lift them into rebellion, 
nor yet the savage cruelties of Alva, nor the exe- 
cution of Count Egmont and Count Horn, 
though the atrocities of Spanish mutineers did at 



134 A Hkro and Soms; Othkr Foi,k 

last expedite those deliberations which ultimated 
in the pacification of Ghent. I have wondered 
many, many times, Orange did not lose faith in 
his countrymen and give them over to their servi- 
tude. His fortitude sustained him, and his pa- 
tience held as if it had been a steel cable, and his 
natural cheerfulness was of unquestionable service 
in keeping him from losing heart. Almost every 
leader proved false to him, some of his own rela- 
tions included, and he kept on! He must use 
the men he had. A great cause requires and 
equips a great leader. It was so in William. 
His country and its cause had him, and in him 
was rich. He saw worth in men, and built on 
that. That men betrayed him did not unseat his 
faith in men. He did what every statesman does, 
had faith in men, appealed to their possibilities, 
to their prospective rather than their present 
selves, and so helped them to what they ought 
to be. He lifted them up to his levels, and they 
stood peers in manhood and patriotism. Many 
failed him; but many did not. Much discouraged, 
but, specially later in his career, much encouraged 
him. Deeds of heroism so incredible as to read 
like a romance, — such deeds were not rare, rather 
common. The siege of Maestrich takes rank 
among the heroic episodes in the battles for hu- 
man liberty. One's blood -grows fairly frantic in 
reading the thrilling story, and a man is glad he 



WlIvIvIAM THE SlIvENT 135 

is a man and brother to men wh'o could do feats 
so superb ; and the flooding of the lands in raising 
the siege of Leyden is to be classed among the 
deathless sacrifices for dear liberty. For these 
and all such lofty flights of courage and success, 
William was the inspiration. He was never de- 
feated by defeat. Liberty must not fail. The 
Provinces trusted him in their hearts, and so long 
as he remained firm, self-sacrificing, undisturbed, 
the people (so he argued) could be relied on to 
trust in him and to justify his trust in them. In 
behalf of freedom, no sacrifice or achievement 
was other than feasible to him. He loaded his 
estate with debt for the common good. Through 
many years penury was his portion. Great 
events marshaled themselves about him as if he 
were their necessary captain. He knew the art 
of inspiring men, which is, at last, the mightiest 
resource of a great soul. He knew how to deal 
with men, — the finest of the arts. In his roused 
moments his eloquence, whether spoken or writ- 
ten, swayed men's judgments and nerved their 
hearts. Motley says, "His influence on his audi- 
tors was unexampled in the annals of his 
country or age." His memory lost nothing; his 
ability to read men ranks him with Richelieu; he 
was cautious, politic, but not slow, though his uni- 
form habit of caution robbed his acts of the fine 
flavor of spontaneity; he was painstaking, and as 



136 A Hi^RO AND SOMi; OTHKR FoI,K 

laborious as Philip, which is the last effort of com- 
parison, seeing Philip's industry was all but 
without precedent. If he flooded coasts and in- 
lands by the seas he emptied on them as if the 
seas were his, he also inundated courts of kings 
and assemblies of nobles with appeals, remon- 
strances, or letters of instruction or information. 
He lacked nothing of being ubiquitous, and was 
the moving spirit of all occasions where liberty 
had followers. Nothing eluded nor bewildered 
him, from which observations Motley's estimate 
stands justified; for he called him "The first 
statesman of 'his age." Compare him with Don 
John of Austria, hero of Lepanto, who was 
natural son of Emperor Charles V, vivacious, 
romantic, brilliant, and conqueror of the Turks at 
Lepanto, whence his name had risen, like a star, 
to flame at the eastern window of every court in 
Christendom. Made governor of the Nether- 
lands, he found himself beset by difficulties 
through which sword and troop could not cut his 
way. Harassed by the distrust, unfaithfulness, and 
meanness of Philip ; hedged by the sagacious 
statecraft of his adversary, William of Orange, 
he attempted the role of war; found himself de- 
feated by an invisible antagonist, whose name 
haunted his days and nights — ^the name was 
"Father William" — at last, " flared up like an ex- 
piring lamp, and died. Such the conqueror of 



WlIvIvIAM TI-IS SlIvKNT 137 

Lepanto when brought to cope with Wilham the 
Silent. Wilham stood possessed of vast charac- 
ter-resources, so that what was lacking in sup- 
phes he made up in himself. 

William of Orange, and Philip, King of Spain 
and the Western Hemisphere, challenge com- 
parison. Philip was statesman in that his powers 
were adapted to the cabinet rather than the battle ; 
and Philip may pass for a statesman in some 
particulars. Painstaking, laborious, with real 
ability in choice of servants to execute his will, 
and keeping eyes on the horizons of the greatest 
empire the world had seen, he peopled this wide 
world of his with hopeless projects, since his am- 
bition was topless as skies of night. His claims 
were fantastic or greats as you might elect to 
call them; for he claimed both England and 
France as provinces of his empire, keeping at the 
respective courts secret agents, with lavish gold 
for corrupting those sovereigns' servants. His 
reign is a sort of free fight with him on every- 
body, he keeping every item under his own sur- 
veillance, but displaying no capacity to do other 
that baldly claim and attempt. He could not 
compass his designs. There were no compensa- 
tions in his reign. He lost and never gained. 
England defeated him at home and abroad. The 
Dutch defied him, and won their liberty after 
bitter years of struggle. His every effort to sub- 



138 A Hejro and Some) OTHieR F'oi.k 

due them failed. Though the Inquisition murdered 
from fifty to one hundred thousand of his most 
industrious subjects, this done, and still failure! 
He trusted no man. He probably poisoned his 
own son, Don Carlos. His treachery was black 
as Caesar Borgia's ; and to his chosen counselors he 
wrote interminable lies, apparently deeming lying a 
virtue. He offered fabulous sums of money for 
the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, of King 
Henry IV, and of William, Prince of Orange, and 
finally gave William's estate to the relatives of 
Gerard, the assassin of the prince. Philip was 
painstaking, not sagacious. While admiring his 
Industry, I can not bring myself to the point of 
believing he had greatness. A superior chief 
clerk he was, and an inferior king. 

William the Silent, Prince of Orange, money- 
less, resourceless, defeated the richest empire of 
the world without winning a single decisive vic- 
tory. So viewed, he is a statesman of magnificent 
proportions. At his death, fifteen out of the seven- 
teen provinces were in rebellion; and had he lived, 
there can be no rational doubt the remaining two 
had rebelled and the seventeen become free. As 
it was, seven provinces won their liberty, and in 
1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, were acknowl- 
edged as a sovereign State and free from Spain. 

William was importuned, vehemently impor- 
tuned, to become king. He refused, as Cromwell 



Wii^iyiAM the; SiIvKnt 139 

in a later day refused, though, had Cromwell be- 
come king, there is no reason why he might not 
have handed down his scepter to his son. What 
sealed Richard Cromwell's fate was that he was 
not a king, the English wishing to feel they had 
a hereditary head. This was the mistake of the 
Prince of Orange. While his refusal of regal 
honors reflected credit on his manhood and dis- 
interested patriotism, that refusal was a weakness 
to the cause of liberty. About a king men of 
those days would have rallied as about no Stadt- 
holder; for the Flemings were never essentially 
republican in instincts. Freemen they learned to 
be; republicans they never learned to be. Had 
William of Orange become king, then had his 
son, as sovereign, led his subjects to battle. As 
yet Europe was not ready for a commonwealth. 
As the case stood^ William lived, loving his 
country with an ingenuous affection ; was a patriot 
statesman, whose reward for years of toil, which 
seamed his brow at the age of forty as if he had 
been seventy, was an impoverished estate, but an 
imperishable fame. 

On July 10, 1584, Belthazer Gerard shot 
"Father William" in his own home, and he, fall- 
ing, cried: "My God, have pity on my soul! I 
am sorely wounded! My God, have pity on my 
soul and this poor people !" and this, save his 
whispered "Yes" to his sister's eager inquiry if 



140 A H:^RO AND Some; OTH:eR Foi^k: 

he trusted his soul to Jesus, were his last words, 
so that, as his country had been his thought 
through many turbulent years, so was it his last 
thought and love — 'a. fitting word for a patriot 
such as he to leave on his dead lips. Let the his- 
torian's verdict stand as ours, "His life was a 
noble Christian epic." 

A statesman is a man of his own and succeed- 
I Ing ages, and in him^ therefore, is much antici- 

' patory. He outruns his time. The vision Will- 

iam the Silent had, which outran the simple 
patriot in him, was the vision of religious toler- 
ance. This might serve him for crown had he 
no other. What the world has learned to do, that 
this Dutch prince taught — virtually first of modern 
statesmen. In an utterly intolerant age and coun- 
try, he apostled manly tolerance. In a later day, 
John of Barneveldt came to the block because he 
was an Arminian. Protestants, though never 
wholesale persecutors, had yet to learn this wise 
man's lesson. And this must rank among the 
underscored virtues of this old soldier of liberty, 
that he wished men to worship God without 
molestation. Nor did this tolerance grow out of 
indifference to religion. In youth he was care- 
less of Divine matters, and thought little of 
religion. But so sagacious and so burdened a 
man as he grew to feel need of strength beyond 
the help of man. In his mature years he was 



WHvIvIAM THE) S1I.ENT 141 

from conviction a Christian in the Protestant 
Church, and his Hfe walked on high levels to the 
end. God was to him as to innumerable souls, 
"a refuge and strength and a very present help 
in 'time of trouble;" and in death he committed 
his soul to God. By worth and service; by forti- 
tude and patriotism ; by long years of devotion to 
the task of breaking the scepter of tyranny; by 
genius burning as the light, and goodness puri- 
fying itself as years marched past, — by these at- 
tributes has William the Silent, Prince of Orange, 
earned a right to stand erect among the world's 
immortals. 



The Romance of American Geography 

IN traveling over the undulating prairies of many 
States of the Union, huge granite boulders are 
seen lying solitary, as if dropped by some passing 
cloud, having no kindred in the rocky formations 
environing, but being absolute foreigners in a 
strange land. There they lie, prone, chiseled by 
some forgotten art, and so solitary as to brmg 
a tinge of melancholy to the reflection of the 
thoughtful. In certain regions these boulders are 
so numerous and so various in size as to be 
used in building foundations, and sometimes 
entire habitations. These rocks were dropped in 
remote centuries by passing icebergs, and are 
solitary memorials of the ice-drift across our 
continent. The crafts on which they voyaged 
were wrecked long ago. They were passengers on 

"Some shattered berg, that, pale and lone, 
Drifts from the white north to the tropic zone, 
And in the burning day 
Melts peak by peak away, 
Till on some rosy even 
It dies, with sunlight blessing it." 
142 



Romance; of' American Geography 143 

This instance may be taken as a parable, sug- 
gesting the history embodied in names of locali- 
ties, lakes, straits, rivers, cities, hamlets. States. 
Those names are the debris of a dead era; and 
for one, I can not escape the wonder and the 
pathos of these shattered yesterdays, which have 
a voice, calling, as in hoarse whispers sad with 
tears, "We are not, but we were." 

Though we are little given to so esteeming 
the study, there is romance in geography, learned 
by us when lads and lasses — not because we would, 
but because we must — and such study was difficult 
and unsavory. The catalogue of names we learned, 
perforce, was dreary as the alphabet; and not a. 
memory of pleasure lingers about the book in 
which we studied, save that, in cramped, sprawl- 
ing hand, upon the margin is written the name 
of some little sweetheart beside our own, — and 
dead long since. No, geography was not ro- 
mantic. That was a possession we never suspected. 
But romance is ubiquitous, like flowers of spring, 
sheltering where we little anticipate. 

To a lover of history, however, few studies will 
prove so fascinating as a study of names in 
geography. Finding a few at random, feel the 
thrill of the history they embody — history and 
reminiscence: Providence, Roger Williams named 
the city so when himself was a refugee ; Fort 
Wayne, named for General "Mad Anthony" 



144 A Hkro and Some; Other Folk 

Wayne, who destroyed the Indian scourge in the 
Northwest Territory in 1792; Raleigh, so yclept 
for that chiefest friend of American colonization 
among Englisihmen, Sir Walter Raleigh ; Council 
Grove, because, in the Indian days, there, in a 
grove — rare in the prairie country of Kansas — 
the Red Men met for counsel; Astoria, bearing 
name of that famous fortune-maker in the fur 
country of the West and North; Buffalo Lake, 
reminding us that there the buffalo tramped in 
days seeming now so remote, when the buffalo 
rode, like a mad cavalry troop, across the wide 
interior plains of our continent ; Eagle River, for 
here this royal bird used to love to linger as if 
it were his native stream. These are the scattered, 
miscellaneous reminiscences of men and acts, and 
things and achievements. In Kansas is a village 
called Lane, a name which, to the old settler in 
Kansas, is big with meaning, seeing it brings to 
life one of the strange, romantic, contradictory, 
and brilliant characters of the "Squatter Sover- 
eignty" days, when Jim Lane wrought, with his 
weird and wonderful eloquence, his journeys oft, 
and his tireless industry, in championing the cause 
of State freedom. Him and his history, reading 
like a tale told by a campfire's fitful light, this 
name embodies. What an archive of history does 
such a name become ! Portage is a name preg- 
nant with memories of the old days of discovery, 



Romance of American Geography 145 

when America was still an unknown limit. "Grand 
Portage" you shall see on the map, neighboring 
the Great Lakes, whereby you see, as through a 
magic glass, the boats, loaded on the shoulders 
when navigation was no longer possible, and the 
journey made over the watershed till a stream was 
followed far enough to float the birch-bark canoe 
once more. Prairie is another word full of inter- 
est. Pampas is a word, Peruvian in origin, 
designating the prairies of South America ; while 
prairie is a French word, meaning meadow. 
Pampas is the Peruvian word for field. The 
words are synonyms, but come from different 
hemispheres of the world. Does it not seem 
strange that a word descriptive of these treeless 
wildernesses of North America should be a 
gift, not of the Indian hunter who used to scurry 
across them swift as an arrow of death, but 
should really be the gift of those hardy and valor- 
ous French voyagers who had no purpose of fast- 
ening a name on the flower-sown, green meadows 
that swayed in the wind like some emerald sea? 
So the Incas have christened the plains of South 
America, and the French adventurer the plains 
of North America! Though, who that crosses 
our prairies, sweet with green, and lit with flow- 
ers like lamps of many-colored fires, thinks he is 
speaking the speech of the French trapper of 
long ago? Savannah is an Indian word, meaning 



146 A Hero and Some Othkr Foi^k; 

meadow, and gives name to these dank meadow- 
lands under warmer skies, where reeds and 
swamp-grasses grow; and the name of Savannah 
in Georgia is thus bestowed. How much we owe! 
Who has not helped us? Nor does the traveler 
through the castellated steeps of the "Bad Lands" 
know, nor probably does he care, that this cap- 
tion came from the far-traveling French trapper, 
whose venturesome and tireless feet have made 
him at home in all places on our continent. How 
valuable, however, must be these names to one 
who cares to familiarize himself with the knowl- 
edge and romance of those pioneers of geography ! 
Of like origin is "butte." The voyager saw those 
isolated peaks, too high to be called hills and 
too low to be called mountains, and said they are 
buttes (knolls) — names which cling to them as 
tenaciously as their shadows. 

In a word, I have found this study a breath 
blown from far mountain ranges of history; and 
this breath upon the face has made an hour of 
life grow young and beautiful, for which reason 
I now write the story of my pleasure. The North 
American continent lends itself with peculiar 
grace to such a study as is 'here suggested, because 
its story lies under the eyes of history. 'T was 
scarcely an hour ago, in the world's day, since 
Columbus found out this continent, and, with a 
giant's hand, swung its huge doors inward for the. 



RoMANc:^ OF American Geography 147 

centuries to enter; and all those discoveries are 
our commonplace knowledge. What tribes were 
here, Prescott and Parkman have told us in thrill- 
ing narratives ; and columns of eager colonists 
we have seen press their way along the seashore, 
into forests, over mountains, across deserts, never 
halting, save to catch breath as a climber of a 
mountain does, — on, on_, till a continent is white 
with the tents of millions. But the Indian ab- 
origine, for whom the tepee was portable habita- 
tion, and the stretch of plain and hill and lake 
and river, hunting-ground or battle-ground, — the 
Indian is mainly the reminiscence of an old man's 
straggling speech ; and these names he has left, 
clinging to lake and river and hamlet, are his 
memorial. In Montezuma's empire, where once 
a barbaric splendor held court and set in tragic 
splendor, lurid even yet at these centuries' remove, 
what is left save a vocabulary or a broken idol 
lying black and foreboding in some mountain 
stream? Or those discoverers whose adventurous 
deeds are part of the world's chosen treasure, what 
but their names are written on the streams or 
hills? The import of these observations is this, 
that from American geography we may, with 
reasonable accuracy and detail, decipher this ro- 
mantic history. In those newer parts of our 
continent names have too often lost the flavor of 
history; have, in truth, done so, save in isolated 



148 A Hkro and Somb Otheir Foi^k; 

instances. The "Smithtons" and "Griggsby Sta- 
tions" are monotonous and uninteresting, and the 
Tombstones are little short of sacrilege. In the 
crush of movers' wagons there appeared to be a 
scramble for names of any sort. Places multiply, 
imagination is asleep, and names nearest at hand 
are most readily laid hold of; yet, even in such 
a dearth of originality and poetry, scant names 
flash out which remind you of the morning names 
in our continent's history. A Springdale reminds 
you that colonists here found a dale, gladdened 
with living springs : or an Afton suggests how 
some exiled Scot salved his heart b}^ keeping 
near his exile a name he loved. Our day will, in 
the main, attach names for simple convenience, 
as they put handles on shovels. Such names, of 
course, are meaningless. The day for inventing 
names is past, or seems so. We beg or borrow, 
as the surveyor who marched across the State of 
New York, with theodohte and chain and a 
classical atlas, and blazed his way with Rome, and 
Illyria, and Syracuse, and Ithaca, — a procedure at 
once meaningless and dense. Greece nor Rome 
feels at home among us, nor should they. 

History is a method of remembrance, and 
names are a method of remembrance also, the 
two conspiring to the same end. When the 
Saxon, sailing across seas, fgund a rude home 
in England, he named his new home Saxonland, 



Romance; of American Geogiiaphy 149 

and there are East and West and South Saxons ; 
and so, Essex and Wessex and Sussex. In hke 
manner, emigrants from various shores across 
the grim Atlantic kept the memory and names 
of that dear land from which they sailed; and by 
running your eyes over those earlier colonies, 
you shall see names — aboriginal and imported — • 
and so learn, in an Infallible way, who first 
pitched tents on that soil. This tracking dead 
races over seas by the local designations they have 
left has always fascinated my thought. Those 
names are verily planted in the earth, and grow 
like trees that refuse to die. Through centuries 
of turbulence and slaughter and racial trans- 
planting, see how some Roman words stay and 
refuse to go, knowing as little of retreat as a 
Roman legion ! "Chester" and "coin," as good 
old English terminals, are tense with interest, 
since they as plainly record history as did min- 
strels in old castle hall. Chester is the Roman 
"castra," camp, and where the name occurs 
across Britain, indicates with undeviating fidelity 
that there, in remote decades, Roman legions 
camped and the Roman argent eagle flashed 
back morning to the sun. Coin is a contraction 
for "colonia," indicating that at the place so 
designated a Roman colonia received honors at 
the hands of the Roman Senate. In other words, 
these locative terminals are as certainly be- 



150 A Hejro and Some; Othkr Foi^k 

queathed England by the Roman occupancy as 
is London Tower. "Ton" is historical too, but is 
footprint of another passing race — namely the 
Gaul, defeated of Caesar on many a bloody field — 
and is a contraction of "tuin," meaning garden, 
appearing in Ireland as "dun/' meaning garrison, 
both indicating an inclosure, and so becoming a 
frequent terminal for names of cities, as Hunting- 
tuin or tun, probably originally a hunting-tower 
or hamlet. A second form of "ton" is our or- 
dinary "town," which, as often as we use, we are 
speaking the tongue of the Trans-Alpine Gauls, 
taking a syllable from the word of a half-forgotten 
people. From yet another source is the locative 
"ham." Chester is of Roman origin, tun is of 
Gaelic; but "ham" is Anglo-Saxon, and means 
village, whence the sweet word home. Witness 
the use of this suffix in Effingham and the like. 
"Stoke" and "beck" and "worth" are also Saxon. 
"Thorpe" and "by" are Danish, as in Althorp 
and Derby. These reminiscent instances from 
over seas will serve to illuminate the thought under 
discussion — the historical element embodied in 
the names of locaHties. As in these three locatives 
we track three distinct peoples through England, 
we may, by the same method, fall on the foot- 
prints of divers civilizations in our New World. 
Thus far we have touched, at random, as one 
does on a holiday. Now, seriously, as on a 



Romance) op Ame;rican Geography 151 

journey of discovery, may we take staff in hand 
to trace, if possible, the elusive march of popu- 
lations by the ashes of their campfires, as Evan- 
geline did the wanderings of Gabriel, her beloved. 
The Dutch, more 's the pity, have left scant 
memorials of their American empire. "Knicker- 
bocker's History of New York" has effectually 
laughed them out of court; but, notwithstanding, 
they were mighty men, whose idiosyncrasies we 
readily catch at as a jest, but whose greatness 
breaks on us slowly, as great matters must. 
"Kill" was a Dutch word, meaning creek, a ter- 
minal appearing in many of the few words they 
have left us, sUch as Fishkill, Peekskill, Wynants- 
kill, Catskill. Along the banks of streams, with 
names like these, one could see ragged Rip Van 
Winkle, with his dog and gun, with shambling 
hunter's gait, or come silently on solemn Dutch 
burghers, solemnly playing ninepins in the shad- 
ows. Brooklyn (Breuchelin) is Dutch, as are 
Orange, Rensselaer, Stuyvesant, Rhinebeck, Rhine- 
cliff, Vanbrunt, Staatsburg, Rotterdam, Hague, 
Nassau, Walloonsack, Yonkers, and Zurich. 
Wallabout, a borough of Brooklyn (Waalbogt), 
means Walloon's Bay, thus having a religio- 
historical significance. Nor dare we omit that 
river, noble as an epic, named after a Dutch 
discoverer, who, first of Europeans, flung the 
swaying shadows of foreign sails on its beautiful 



T52 A He;ro and Somk Othkr Foi^k; 

waters. Hudson is a prince among triumphant 
and adventurous discoverers. And I never sail 
past the Palisades, by summer or gorgeous 
autumn, when all the hills are blood and flame, 
without reverting in thought to Hudson, who 
gave the stream to our geography and his name 
to the stream, nor forget that he was set adrift 
in the remote and spacious sea, which likewise 
bears his name ; though well it may, for it is 
doubtless his grave; for, set adrift by mutineers, 
■he was crushed by icefloes, or fell asleep in death 
in that winter sea. But Hudson River and Hud- 
son Bay will make him as immortal as this con- 
tinent. All men shall know by them that Hein- 
rich Hudson hath sailed this way. So much, 
then, for following along dim paths once trod by 
a Dutch burgher's tramp of empire. 

Of the Swedes, who, under their victorious king, 
Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant, settled New 
Sweden (now known as New Jersey), are left only 
dim footprints, the path of them being all but 
lost, though, fortunately, sufficiently plain to trace 
the emigration of a race. These Swedish emi- 
grants and founders of what they hoped would 
prove a State, never attained a supremacy, their 
enemies, who were their immediate neighbors and 
fellow-emigrants from Protestant States, so speed- 
ily overwhelming them — first the Dutch, succeeded 
by the inevitable Saxon. Berg'en, the first Swed- 



Romance; of American Geography 153 

ish settlement, in comparative isolation, still 
whispers the story of Gustavus Adolphus's state- 
craft and vision, and seems a solitary survivor of 
an old camp of emigrants voyaging by stream 
and plain, and all slain by famine and disease and 
Indian stealth and pioneer's hardship, save him- 
self. Nordhofif and Stockholm and Pavonta are 
scattered reminders of an attempted sovereignty 
which is no more. 

Protestantism made valorous attempt to pre- 
empt this New World of North America for civil 
and religious liberty and the Reformed faith. 
A look at their breadth of plan must be a benefit 
to us and a praise to those who planned so large 
things for the glory of God. That they acted 
independently of each other shows how wide- 
spread this thirst for liberty and this love for the 
kingdom of God. I know few things that stir 
me more. Swedish Lutherans settled New Sweden ; 
the Dutch Walloons settled New Holland; the 
Baptists, Rhode Island; the Quakers, Pennsyl- 
vania ; the Huguenots, the CaroHnas ; the Puritans, 
New England. The Anglican Church only inci- 
dentally, and not of intention, settled Virginia. 
Catholicism seized and holds South America, 
Central America, and Mexico, but in the United 
States was represented only by the colony of 
Maryland, planted by Lord Baltimore, and bears 
mark of his religious faith in naming his plantation 



154 -^ Hkro and Some; Other FoIvK 

after Mary, the Catholic queen, his own name 
appearing in the name of its present metropolis, 
Baltimore. In days when in England the Catholic 
was under ban, he founded this colony as a Ca- 
naan for Roman Catholics. Spanish Catholics 
worked their way along the Pacific Coast, and 
French Catholicism sailed up the St. Lawrence and 
down the Mississippi, though the latter territory 
now belongs to the Protestant faith. Admiral 
Coligny, an illustrious son of France, attempted 
planting the Huguenots in America, though this 
colonizing experiment has left scant memorial of 
Huguenot occupancy, because the destruction of 
this colony by Spanish Catholics was so sudden and 
so utter; yet the Carolinas are witness to this 
hazard and hope, bearing the name of the infamous 
King Charles IX. How terrible is the irony v/hen 
we recall how this same ruler, after whom 
Coligny named his land of refuge for persecuted 
Protestants, was author of the most malignant 
religious massacre on record — the Massacre of 
St. Bartholomew ! In Beaufort and Carteret may 
be discovered reminiscences of an expedition 
whose close was disastrous, 3^et heroic. 

Everybody has contributed to giving names 
to the States ; therefore attention to them as a 
class is fitting. England gave name to Maryland, 
as suggested in another paragraph ; to New York, 
named in honor of the Duke of York, afterward 



Romance op American Geography 155 

known as James II, of evil memory; Virginia, 
so styled by Sir Walter Raleigh, that pattern of 
chivalry, in honor of his queen, Elizabeth ; New 
Jersey, after Jersey, the island ; Rhode Island, 
after the Island of Rhodes; Delaware, after Lord 
de la Warre, early governor of Virginia; Penn- 
sylvania, after William Penn, the good; New 
Hampshire, after Hampshire, in England, as New 
England was, in love, called after the mother- 
land; Georgia, named for George II, by philan- 
thropic General Oglethorpe, who brought hither 
his colony of debtors, — such the contributions of 
England to our commonwealth of names. America 
has supplied one State a name, Washington; and 
who more or so worthy to write his name upon 
a State as George Washington, first Commander- 
in-chief and President ? Spain has christened these 
Commonwealths : Florida, the land of flowers ; 
California; Colorado, colored; Nevada. We 
must thank France for these : Maine, for a prov- 
ince in France ; Vermont, green mountains ; the 
Carollnas; Louisiana, a name attached by the 
valorous La Salle, in fealty to his prince, calling 
this province, at the mouth of the river he had 
followed to its entrance into the ocean, after 
Louis XIV, the then darHng of the French people. 
Mexico is remembered in two instances : New 
Mexico and Texas. Italy has a memorial, be- 
stowed in gratitude by America. The District of 



156 A Hkro and Somk Othkk. Foi^k 

Columbia, with its capital, Washington, reminds 
men forever that Columbus discovered and 
Washington saved America. Besides this, to 
Italy's credit, or discredit — I know not which — 
must be charged the giving title to two continents. 
Amerigo Vespucci has lent his name to one 
hemisphere of the world. Other States bear In- 
dian captions. Those wandering hunters have 
lost their hunting-grounds ; but we can not forget 
whose hunting-grounds they were so long as 
the Indian name clings to the Territory where he 
is not, but his name shall remain as his monu- 
ment. Indiana is generic, the land of the Indian. 
With this exception, the States are called after 
tribes or by some Indian name : Alabama, 
Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Ne- 
braska, Kansas, the Dakotas (who will forget 
v/hen Hiawatha passed to the land of the Da- 
kotahs for his wooing?), Wyoming, Oregon, 
Idaho, and the like. With such names, we are 
once more sitting in the woodland, by the wig- 
wam, as we did a century ago. The memory 
haunts us. Thus much for the racial element in 
cognomens of States. 

Now again to sec out on the journey on the 
trail of vanished peoples! 

The Spanish invasion of America, now, as we 
recall its story, big with pathos and remorse, the 
pathos predominating, now that the last rag of a 



Romance; of Ame;rican Ge;ography 157 

province has been torn from their feeble hands, — 
the evacuation of Havana, with its sorry pomp 
of exhuming Columbus's dust, is one of the sad- 
dest sights history has called men to look upon. 
Columbus, a foreigner, gave Spain a New World; 
and foreigners of still another blood have taken 
away what by right never belonged to Spanish 
sovereignty. Just as this fate is, we can but feel 
the immense pathos of the Spanish evacuation of 
the New World. French discoverers hugged the 
rivers, as by some deep affinity. Spaniards, con- 
versely, made march without thought of river- 
ways. They were accustomed to deserts in their 
own land, and feared them not in a remote hemi- 
sphere. They swarmed in the desert. Nothing 
daunted them, Spain's best blood poured into 
the New World, a fact which doubtless accounts,, 
in part, for the devitalized energies and genius 
of this mother country of their birth and hopes 
and initiative. "Florida" is a Spanish tide-mark, 
"St. Augustine" is a gravestone of history, mark- 
ing the mound where lies the dust of the first 
permanent colony planted in America. The 
Spaniard headed loward the southern provinces 
of America, as the Englishman to the east, and 
the Frenchman to the north and central prov- 
inces. Spain held southward. Though the 
colony of Florida was retained till, in the year 
1819, the subtle diplomacy of John Quincy 



158 A Hkro and Soms Othkr Foi,k 

Adams added this peninsula of flowers to the 
Union of States, it had no aggressive value as a 
basis of discovery or colonization. The base of 
Spanish operations was Mexico, the fair land of 
their conquest. Spain exploited her energies in 
Mexico and Peru. She was mad with a lust for 
gold. Her galleons made these lands bankrupt. 
But Spaniards dared to lose themselves in desert or 
forests. The discovery and conquest of Peru is mad 
with turbulent courage and adventure. This we can 
not deny; and the discovery of the Amazon by a 
brother of Pizarro is a story to thrill a sluggard 
into a sleepless waking. We see these heroic 
days, and forgive much of Spanish misrule and 
avarice. De Soto, crowding through jungles of 
undergrowth and miasms, through tribes of hos- 
tile men, though stimulated by the wild lust for 
gold, is for all a brave chapter in the world's 
biography; and to see him buried in the massive 
river he discovered is to make other than the 
tender-hearted weep. To see on the map of the 
Union "Llano Estacado" is to give, as it were, 
the initials of heroic names. Spain, which staked 
these plains, will walk across them no more. They 
did this service for others. Were they fine-fibered 
enough to feel these losses, the sorrow we feel 
for their exit would be intensified; but their cen- 
turies of misrule have certified to their all but 
utter lack of any finer sentiment or sense of high 



Romance op American Geography 159 

responsibility. Give them what honor we may. 
Recall their departed glory, and let it light the 
sky, if only for a moment, like a flash of light- 
ning. Spaniards were little less given to naming 
their settlements "Saint" than the French. From 
Mexico, up the long Pacific Coast, they affixed 
names which will remain perpetually as the sole 
memorial that once these banished dons held 
sway in the United States. These names cluster 
in the Southern United States, touching imme- 
diately on their chief dependency, Mexico; but 
are still in evidence farther away, though growing 
scanter, as footprints in a remote highway. Rio 
Grande, Del Norte, Andalusia, and the charming 
name affixed to a charming mountain range, 
Sierra Nevada, — how these names rehabilitate a 
past! Nevada and Andalusia! One needs little 
imagination to see the flush that gathered on the 
dusky cheek of the old Spanish discoverer when 
he calmed, in part, his homesickness by giving 
his wanderings the name of the dear home from 
which he came, and kindled his pride into a fire, 
like the conflagration of mountain pines, by tell- 
ing the New World the names of his ancestral 
land. But his "San" and "Santa" are frequent 
as tents upon a battle-field when the battle is spent. 
"Corpus Christi" — how Spanish and Catholic 
that is! San Antonio, Santa Fe, Cape St. Lucas. 
In Florida : Rio San Juan, Ponce de Leon, Cape 



i6o A Hero and Some Other Foi.k 

San Bias, Hernando, Punta Rosa, Cerro de Oro, 
are indicative of the growing communities in 
that peninsula after the invasion located at St. 
Augustine, But of all the parts of the United 
States, New Mexico is most honeycombed with 
Spanish locatives. Passing that way, one seems 
not to be in America, but in Spain. Spain is 
everywhere. Their names are here strewn thick 
as battle soldiers sleeping on the battle-field : 
Las Colonias, Arayo Salado, Don Carlos Hill, 
Cerillos, Dolores, San Pambo, Caiion Largo, 
Magdalene Mountains, San Pedro. Thence these 
names creep up into Utah, though there they are 
never numerous : Santa Clara, Escalante Desert, 
Sierra Abaja; and farther north, reaching to all 
but hand-clasp with the French Du Chasne River, 
is San Rafael River. St. Xavier, San Miguel, 
Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, San 
Gabriel, — can you not in these names hear the 
Spanish languishing speech and see the Jesuit 
pioneer? Eldorado, Sacramento, El Paso, Los 
Angeles, are footprints of the Spanish discoverer. 
And Cape Blanco, in far-away Oregon, probably 
represents the farthest campfire of the Spanish 
march. In his area the don was indefatigable. 
De Soto marched like a conqueror. Coronado 
found his way into Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado. 
La Junta, in Kansas, may mark the subsidence of 
the wave of Spanish invasion, and Kansas was 



RoMANCK OF American Geography i6i 

part of the kingdom of "Quivera." Eugene Ware, 
the Kansas poet, who, under the nom de plume of 
"Ironquill," has written graceful and musical po- 
ems, has told of Coronado's excursion into this 
now populous and fertile region : 

QUIVERA 

"In that half-forgotten era, 
With the avarice of old. 
Seeking cities he was told 
Had been paved with yellow gold. 
In the kingdom of Quivera — 

Came the restless Coronado 

To the open Kansas plain. 

With his knights from sunny Spain; 

In an effort that, though vain. 

Thrilled with boldness and bravado. 

League by league, in aimless marching. 
Knowing scarcely where or why, 
Crossed they uplands drear and dry. 
That an unprotected sky 
Had for centuries been parching. 

But their expectations, eager. 
Found, instead of fruitful lands, 
Shallow streams and shifting sands, 
Where the buffalo In bands 
Roamed o'er deserts dry and meager. 

Back to scenes more trite, j^et tragic. 

Marched the knights with armor'd steeds; 

Not for them the quiet deeds; 

Not for them to sow the seeds 

From which empires grow like magic. 



1 62 A H:eRo AND Some; Other Foi<k 

Never land so hunger-stricken 
Could a Latin race remold; 
They could conquer heat or cold — 
Die for glory or for gold — 
But not make a desert quicken. 

Thus Quivera was forsaken; 
And the world forgot the place 
Through the lapse of time and space. 
Then the blue-eyed Saxon race 
Came and bade the desert waken." 

In Colorado, El Moro, Las Animas, and 
Buena Vista are credentials of Spanish occupancy, 
the last-named place being, so far as I have been 
able to trace, the farthest camp marked by a 
name in the Colorado district. They all sought 
gold, and having failed to find the thing for 
which they made their quest, ran back, like a re- 
tiring wave. Coronado and Eldorado are suffused 
with Spanish life, like a woman's cheek with 
blushes when her lover comes. Over scorching 
deserts, and along the western coasts of America,, 
the' Spaniard toiled, nor halted till the soft Span- 
ish speech mingled with the swift, ejaculatory 
utterance of the far French frontier. For this 
search of theirs we bless them, and shall always, 
be glad they left their nomenclature to mind us 
of what this now wrecked people had achieved. 

And our geography is sown thick with remi- 
niscences of the French occupancy of America. 
Now he is a total foreigner in this realm he. 



Romance of American Geography 163 

helped so largely to discover. Not Acadia was 
more bereft of the French after their sad ban- 
ishment than our America is of French rule. 
New Orleans has its Creole. 

In Quebec, of all American cities, you seem 
most in the old French regime. The names 
above the business blocks would make you be- 
lieve that what you had read of the battle of 
Quebec was a myth, and that Wolfe truly died 
and Montcalm lived to celebrate a victory; but 
when you climb to the fortress, it is the English- 
man's speech you hear, and the English colors you 
see floating on the heights. The French empire 
is melted away like snows of winter in the month 
of June. But those now remote days, profligate 
of valor, when French trapper and discoverer, 
fearless as Eric the Bold, fought their way along 
lake and river, over plain and mountain, with 
fierce Indian and fiercer winter, — those remote days 
are on us once more, when we forget our history 
and read our geography. There may be no new 
France in contemporaneous American history, but 
in contemporaneous geography there is. The 
French discoverer fires the imagination. I con- 
fess to wishing I might have tramped by his side 
through the dense forests; have sailed in his 
canoe on lake and stream ; have plodded with 
him, by oar or sail, over the Great Lakes; have 
joined with him in portage ; have been boon com- 



164 A Hkro and Some; Othe;r Foi^k: 

panion with La Salle on his journey to the sea 
on the wide and majestic Mississippi; have con- 
sorted with Pere Marquette, Few American his- 
tories will do more to raise the temperature of one's 
blood than Parkman's story of the French occu- 
pancy of North America. 

And one reason why Gilbert Parker's "An 
Adventurer of the North" and "Pierre and his 
People," books vivid with a boundless freedom 
and heroism, hold attention and gather force in 
one's spirit is, that they unconsciously, yet truly, 
carry us back to those bold days when such 
episodes were not the exception, but the rule. 
Pioneering appeals, in some' degree, to us all; 
and in Frenchmen were such resiliency of spirit, 
such abandon to adventure, as that they stand as 
typical explorers. Who would not have been 
alongside Hennepin when he, on a snowy winter 
day, first of all Europeans, saw thunder-voiced 
Niagara? The English colonies seized, fortified, 
and held domain in small compass, and guarded 
it against the world; but this was not the French 
idea. They spread over a continent, as a sea 
might have done. The light step of Mercury 
belonged to the French colonizer. He loved to 
roam wherever untrod wastes beckoned. Eng- 
lishmen in America did little discovering; French- 
men did much. They crossed the continent, and 
would have done so had it been twice the breadth 



Romance; of American Geography 165 

it was. I have already shown how some of our 
commonest words in Western speech are of this 
origin. While England hugged the Atlantic sea- 
board, Frenchmen had navigated the Great Lakes, 
had sailed the Mississippi to the Gulf, had set the 
seal of their names on the land they had traversed, 
had gone in to the shoreless interior of the Far 
West; and to this day you can track the old 
hunter to the Pacific Coast by the reminiscent 
names he has left behind. The continent was his 
home. To him we owe much more than we 
shall ever pay; but to recall the debt we owe him 
may serve to make a wider margin to our own life 
at least. The vast extent of this pioneer work of 
France may be seen by recalling that the battle 
of Quebec gave England undisputed sway over 
what is now known as British America, and what 
in the history of the United States was known as 
"the Territory of the Northwest." This came 
from those by a single treaty. One defeat cost 
them an empire. Nor was this all their territory. 
This treaty of 1763 gave England only French 
acquisitions east of the Mississippi and north of 
the Great Lakes, but left French America, west of 
that river and south of the lakes, intact, which 
shows how the common consent of nations ac- 
corded to French valor in exploration the bulk of 
the North American continent. Essentially chival- 
rous, the French explorer proved the knight- 



1 66 A Hi^RO AND Som:b Othe^r Foi^k 

errant among American discoverers. By the 
treaty of 1803, Napoleon ceded 1,171,931 square 
miles to the United States, a tract eight times as 
large as France itself. France, by rights acquired 
by discoveries, owned about two-thirds of the 
continent of North America, and to-day owns not 
so much as would supply burial room for a child! 
Saxon as I am, I confess I can not go to Montreal 
or Quebec, nor look upon the regal St. Lawrence, 
without a sort of Indian Summer regret filling my 
sky. The French as explorers were magnificent. 
And Frenchmen in those days of their dis- 
coveries were eminently devout^ either in fact or 
in habits of thought — sometimes one, sometimes 
both — as may be inferred from the religiosity of 
the names they so often gave the places of their 
discovery. In some instances, this fact is to be 
explained by recalling that Jesuits were the 
explorers ; but matters conspired to one effect, 
namely, starring the path of their discoveries by 
"saints," as with the Spaniards, as has been men- 
tioned. From the St. Lawrence, which is the 
noblest stream on which my eyes have ever 
rested, to the old Saint Louis at the Mississippi's 
mouth, it seems a march of palmers ; for at every 
halt they planted a fieur de lis and a cross. In 
this nomenclature, despite ourselves, is a witchery, 
under whose spell I plead guilty to falling. On 
the Atlantic side of Newfoundland is Notre 



RoMANc:^ OF American Geography 167 

Dame Bay, while beside the island northward the 
majestic St. Lawrence mingles the lakes with the 
sea. Toil your way up the river, as in the long 
ago the discoverers did, and see on either shore 
the sacred names : St. Charles, St. Johns, St. 
Paul's Bay, and on and on^ across or through 
the continent, St. Mary's, St. Joseph, St. Paul, 
St. Ivouis. So the voyager made journey. Lake 
Champlain tells the inroad of a brave French 
discoverer. Au Sable chasm answers for it that 
here, on this black water, the ubiquitous voyager 
has floated. Vermont and Montpelier say, "Re- 
member who has been here." Detroit (the strait) 
is a tollgate for the French highway. Marquette, 
Joliet, La Salle, wake from the dead a trinity of 
heroic discoverers. Than La Salle, America 
never had a more valorous and indefatigable ex- 
plorer. Hennepin minds us of the discoverer of 
Niagara. Sault Ste. Marie, Eau Claire, St. Croix 
River, the Dalles, are old camp-grounds of these 
wanderers. In Indiana, Vincennes is one of the 
oldest French settlements ; Terre Haute (high 
ground) and La Porte are sign-manuals of sunny 
France, St. Joseph, in Missouri, and Des 
Moines (swamp land), in Iowa, and the name 
of a beautiful river in Kansas, Marais des Cygnes 
(the river of swans), tell the trail of the old 
French trapper. Where has he not been? Go- 
ing farther westward, find in Wyoming the Belle 



1 68 A Hero and Some Other Foi«k; 

Fourche River; in Idaho are St. Joseph Creek, 
and Coeur d'Alene Lake, and Lake Fend d'Oreille ; 
in Washington are The Little Dalles, and in 
Oregon, The Dalles ; and in Utah, the Du Chasne 
River. Thus we have tracked the French across 
the continent, from the St. Lawrence to the Pa- 
cific. What travelers they were ! But southward, 
along the great River, there we come, not into 
scattering communities, but into a veritable New 
France. Their names monopolize geography. 
Scan a map of Louisiana, and see how populous 
it is with French patronymic locatives. New Or- 
leans (pronounce it New Or-le-ans, and hear 
French pride rising in the word) is there, and 
St. John Baptist; Baton Rouge, and Thibodeaux, 
and Prudhomme, and Assumption, and Calcasieu, 
and Saint Landry, and Grand Coteau, and scores 
besides, tell how surely Louisiana was a land 
peopled from the French kingdom and for the 
French king, and, as those who discovered and 
those who settled fondly thought, forever. So 
evanescent are the plans of men 1 The word 
"bayou," so common in the regions neighboring 
the Mississippi, is a French word. Prairie, butte, 
bayou, three terms in perpetual geography of this 
Western World, are bequests of a departed people. 
The farthest west and south I have tracked 
the French discoverer in a nanie is in Nebraska, 
where they are identified in the name of the River; 



Romance of American Geography 169 

Platte. La Plata is the Spanish form^ as will be 
seen to the south — say in Texas — and here in 
the north is the French imprint in Platte, that 
wide but shallow stream, flowing over its beds of 
shifting sands. Verily, the French regime in 
America was more than fiction. The names it 
left will keep an eternal remembrance. 

And the English came, and seeded down a 
land with their ideas, language, laws, literature, 
political inclinations, and homestead names. 
Those early emigrants, though refugees from op- 
pressive misrule, loved England notwithstanding. 
Of her they dreamed, to her they clung, from her 
they imported sedate and musical names for their 
new homes this side the sea. New England was 
the special bailiwick for such sowing, though 
Virginia partakes of this seed and harvest. The 
rich old English names, having in them so much 
history and memory, — how good to see them on 
our soil! Those early colonists were not 
original, nor particularly imaginative, but loyal 
lovers they were ; and to give to their home here 
the name attaching to their home there was pledge 
of fidelity to dear old England. In Virginia., one 
will find what he can not find in New England, 
namely, assertions of loyalty to English princes ; 
for the Puritans were never other than stanch 
friends of liberty, a thing which grew upon the 
citizens of the Old Dominion by degrees, and by 



lyo A Hejro and Som:^ Other Foi^k 

slow degrees besides. They were loyalists and 
royalists. This, New England was not, and could 
not be. The Old Dominion's name, Virginia, and 
its first colony, Jamestown, bear attestation to this 
loyalty of which mention is made, though the 
State's name was given by that lover of Queen 
Elizabeth and lover of America, Sir Walter Ral- 
eigh. Berkeley recalls that querulous old loyalistic 
governor of Virginia, that fast believer in the di- 
vine right of kings and of himself; Westmoreland, 
Middlesex, New Kent, Sussex, Southampton, 
Surrey, Isle of Wight, King and Queen, Anne, 
Hanover, Caroline, King William, Princess, 
Prince George, Charles City, are names which tell 
of sturdy believers in kings. No such mark can 
be found in the English colonies to the north. 
To England they were attached, but not to 
English kings. Bath, York, Bedford, Essex, 
Warwick, and time would fail to tell this story 
through. In Maryland you may note this trans- 
planted England too: Somerset, Saulsbury, Cecil, 
Annapolis, Calvert, and St. Mary's, betraying the 
Roman Catholic origin of the colony, as do 
Baltimore, Saulsbury, Northampton, and Marl- 
borough. Who can doubt the maternity of such 
names as these? 

Now turn face toward New England, and find 
old England again: Berwick^ Shapleigh, Boston, 
Litchfield, Clearfield, Norfolk, Springfield, New 



Romance; of American Geography 171 

Britain, Hampton, Middlesex, Fairfield, Windham, 
East Lynne, Roxbury, Kent, Cornwall, Bristol, 
Enfield, Stafford, Woodstock, Buckingham, Ston- 
ington. Fair Haven, Taunton, Barnstable, Fal- 
mouth, Middlebury, Bedford, Dartmouth, Pom- 
fret, Abington, — but why extend the list, musical 
as it is with the home days and the home land? 
But name Plymouth, because it shows the tenacity 
of English loyalty to England; for though the 
Mayflower, with her Puritans, might not have an 
English port from which to set sail for a New 
World, they do yet name their landing-haven 
after the English harbor. Blood is thicker than 
water when the instincts are consulted. Seeing 
these names, we can not mistake where we are. 
This is as certainly English as the Pacific-coast 
line was Spanish and the Mississippi Valley 
French. These Englishmen imported names as 
well as populations. And I, for one, like them 
and their names; for they abound in suggestion. 
Who settled Connecticut and Massachusetts we 
know from these locatives we have read and for 
the names they brought; and for the liberty and 
reHgion they sailed with across the seas, we re- 
member them and love them. 

There are miscellaneous names, telling their 
tale, not of race occupancy, but of who or what 
has passed this way, of beast, or bird, or event, 
or man, which have left impress on geography, — 



172 A Hero and Some Othkr F01.K 

things we do well to study, and which will al- 
ways lend a sort of enchantment and vivacious 
interest to the pages of travel or geography. The 
villages along a railroad are thus often of capti- 
vating interest. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 
Railroad, for instance, may illustrate this point. 
Its name has interest of no common sort. Atchi- 
son is named after a famous pro-slavery advocate, 
who came to Kansas, with his due quota of "bor- 
der ruffians," for the avowed purpose of making 
Kansas a slave State. Topeka is an Indian name; 
Santa Fe is a Spanish landmark, tall as a lighthouse 
builded on a cliff. At the Missouri line is Kansas 
City, so named because this metropolis is created 
by Kansas. The metropolis is in Missouri ; but is 
made rich and great by Kansas men and products. 
Kansas has not a large city in its borders, because 
this Kansas City has engrossed the great business 
interests of a great Commonwealth. The metrop- 
olis of Kansas, in other words, is in the State of 
Missouri, and the name Is as strict a speaking of 
truth as an apostle could have commanded. 

Passing along the line, find Hollidciy, so named 
from the projector of a part of this railroad line; 
on is De Soto, always thrillingly historic ; farther is 
Eudora (a word of Greek genesis, and meaning a 
good gift, though likely enough he who christened 
this village may have known as little of Greek as 
a kitten) ; on is Lawrence, named for a famous anti- 



Romance; op American Geography 173 

slavery agitator and philanthropist of Massachu- 
setts — for Lawrence is a New England colony, as 
is Manhattan, farther up the Kansas River, famil- 
iarly known as the "Kaw," which is the leading 
river of Kansas; here is Lecompton, which keeps 
alive the memory of Lecompte, the Indian chief; 
then comes Tecumseh, as clearly an Indian name 
as the former; then Topeka^ the capital of Kansas, 
and wearing an Indian sobriquet; then comes Wa- 
karusa (Indian, meaning "hip deep," the depth of 
the stream in crossing) ; then Carbondale, so called 
because of the coal deposits which created the vil- 
lage; then Burlingame, a beautiful hamlet, wearing 
a famous name; then Emporia, a city of trafiEic, so 
dubbed for reason of thinking it a famous trade 
center in the earlier days ; Barclay, named for the 
famous Quaker apologist, because this village is a 
Quaker colony; Nickerson, for one of the original 
promoters of this railroad ; Great Bend, referring 
to a great bend the Arkansas River makes at this 
place ; Pawnee Rock, from a local rallying-point of 
the Pawnees when this was an Indian hunting- 
ground ; Garden City, so named because, by irriga- 
tion, this locality was redeemed from comparative 
barrenness; Granada, and Las Animas, and La 
Junta, reminiscent words from the Spanish march 
into Kansas; Puebla, clearly designating that 
strange people whose cliflf dwelHngs are at this 
hour one of the rarest studies in American archse- 



174 ^ Hkro and Som:^ Othe;r Foi,k 

ology. On another branch of this same road: 
Olathe^ an Indian name; Ottawa; Algonquin, for 
"trader;" Chanute, from an Indian chief, who was 
a local celebrity; Elk Falls, referring to those days 
when this river (the Elk) was famous for that 
species of graceful motion called the elk; farther 
are Indian Chief and White Deer, names of evi- 
dent paternity. I have taken this time to run along 
this railroad line so as to show the possibilities 
in this direction anywhere. To learn to read his- 
tory from the stations as we pass is surely an art 
worth learning. In passing across the continent I 
have found it as if a guide had prepared that way 
before us. The natural history of a region may thus 
be read without resorting to a book. Count the 
fauna: Eagle River, Bald Eagle, Buffalo Lake, 
Great Bear Lake, Salmon Falls, Snake River, 
Wolf Creek, White Fish River, Leech Lake, 
Beaver Bay, Carp River, Pigeon Falls, Elk- 
horn, Wolverine, Crane Hill, Rabbit Butte, Owl, 
Rattlesnake, Curlew, Little Crow, Mullet Lake, 
Clam Lake, Turtle Creek, Deerfield, Porcupine 
Tail, Pelican Lake, Kingfisher, Ravens' Spring, 
Deer Ears, Bee Hill, Fox Creek, White Rabbit, — 
can any one mistake the animals haunting these 
places in earlier days? Trapper's Grove tells a 
story we feel, but need not rehearse. So, descriptive 
words in vegetation, or per&on, or characteristic, 
what volumes are contained in them ! Crystal 



Romance op American Ge;ography 175 

River, Little Muddy, Elm Creek, Mission Creek 
(a stream on which was an Indian mission), Calu- 
met^ Table Rock, Crab Orchard, Elm Creek, Lost 
River (the river lost in the sand). Soldier Creek, 
Battle Creek, Corn Creek, Spring Lake, Hackberry, 
Cottonwood Falls, Sand Hills, Poplar Hill, Cold 
Springs, Oak Hill, Cavalry Creek, Bluff Creek, 
Peace Creek, Cedar Bluff, Council Bluffs, Punished 
Woman's Lake, Highbank Creek, Big Knife, Black 
River, Cypress Creek, Black Raven, Brier Creek, 
Big Lick, Laurel, Hurricane Inlet, Dead Man's 
Bay, Pine Hill, Magnolia, Mountain Meadow, 
Medicine Woods, Rush Creek, Salt Plain, Saline 
River, Lava Bed, Wild Horse, Sinking Creek, 
Nam'cless, Grassy Trail (in the desert). Azure Cliffs, 
Miry Bottom, Sand Dune Plateau, Grouse Creek, — 
these are names as communicative of secrets as a 
child. Heath, Rock Lake, Wood Lake, Grand 
Prairie, Lily Creek, Swift Falls, Calamus River, 
Evergreen Lake, Lone Tree (a prairie locality), 
Spring Bank, Fort Defiance, Pontiac, Smoky Hill 
River (these hills are always as if smoky), — what a 
light these names shed on the region in which they 
occur ! 

And you can recapitulate American history in 
its most salient details from a reading of our geog- 
raphy. Great names stay, and will not be gone. 
As moss clings to the rock, so do great memories 
cling to localities. Nature conspires to keep illus- 



176 A Hero and Some; Other Foi,k 

trious men from death. Witness such names as 
follows : Lincoln (General Lincoln of Revolution- 
ary fame), Madison, Pulaski (the brave Pole who 
fought for our freedom), Webster, Sumner, Henry 
(Patrick), Jackson (doughty general and President), 
Breckinridge, Hancock (signer of the Declaration 
of Independence), Lafayette, Clay, Pocahontas, 
Calhoun, Randolph, Monroe, Franklin, Jefferson, 
Clark (the explorer), Douglas (the "Little Giant"), 
Adams, Whitman (the Presbyterian missionary, 
who saved to the United States Washington and 
Oregon, by a heroic episode which deserves the per- 
petual gratitude of those States), Custer (the gen- 
eral slain in Indian warfare), L'^nion (to commemo- 
rate the preservation of our Union), Benton 
(Thomas PI., of Missouri, whose daughter was wife 
of General John C. Fremont), Lewis and Clark 
(discoverers), Garfield, Kane (Arctic explorer), 
Lincoln (the emancipator), Polk, Houston, Lee 
(General Robert E.), Tyler, Van Buren, Scott 
(General Winfield, of the Mexican War), Pike (the 
discoverer of Pike's Peak), Marshall (Chief-Justice), 
Berkely, Hamilton (Alexander, our first lord of 
the Treasury), Gadsden (he of "the Gadsden Pur- 
chase"), Marion, Sumter (both of Revolutionary 
fame), Carteret, Columbus, Stanton, Colfax, 
Greeley, Chase, Sherman, Seward, Fillmore, Har- 
lan (Senator), Butler (Ben), Johnson (obstreperous 
"Andy"), Grant (our chiefest "military hero), Polk 



Romance; op American Gejogeaphy 177 

(General), Brown (John Brown, of Ossawatomie)^ 
Thomas (General), Sheridan, Wallace (General), 
St. John (Prohibitionist, Republican governor of 
Kansas), Lane (Jim Lane, of Kansas), McPherson 
and Sedgewick (both Union generals), Case, Dallas, 
Boone, DeKalb, McDonough, Schuyler, DeWitt, 
Putnam, Kossuth, Hancock, PalO' Alto, Cerro 
Gordo (reminders of the Mexican War), Clayton 
(of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty), Emmet, Frem^ont, 
Taylor (President), Warren (General), Clinton (De- 
Witt), Audubon, Story (Chief-Justice), Buchanan, 
St. Clair, Montcalm, Kosciusko, Steuben, Tippe- 
canoe, — to be acquainted with these names is to 
possess knowledge of the virtual makers of America 
in the range of statesmanship and military achieve- 
ment. 

One other item completes this tabulation. The 
aborigine of America, the Indian, has left "his 
mark" across and through this Nation. He never, 
in any true sense, owned this continent. He hunted 
and fought across it. He swept by, like gusts of 
winter wind. He staid here, he did not live here. 
Possession implies more than occupancy; it implies 
improvement, industry, habitations, cities, destiny, 
as worked out by sweat of toil. But this American 
Indian, who, in honor, never possessed the terri- 
tory, and has left no ruins of cities built by his cun- 
ning and perseverance, nor codes, nor literature, 
has left us names of lake, and stream, and moun- 



lyS A Hero and Somk Other Folk 

tairij and city. This stolid Indian, though you 
would scarcely think it of him, had, in common with 
other nomad and untutored peoples, poetic instincts. 
Their names, like those of the Hebrews, had mean- 
ings, and were picturesque and beautiful, some- 
times, oftentimes, bewitchingly so. Some words 
have a music, liquid as the whip-poor-will's notes 
heard in woodlands climbing a mountain side. 
Minnehaha, "laughing water" — does not the word 
seem laughing, like a falling stream ? I once heard 
a distinguished philologist say that, of all the 
rhythmic words he had hit upon in any tongue, 
Winona was most exquisite. Surely it is not 
musical, but music. See the pomp of names, Hke 
an Indian war march begun : Athabasca, Wyo- 
ming, Tahoe, Niobrara, Mohawk, Sioux City, Ne- 
maha, Hiawatha, Seneca, Chippewa, Chicago, 
Saskatchewan, Pepacton ("meeting of waters"), 
Winnepeg, Cheyenne, Manitoba, Penobscot, Nar- 
ragansett, Chicopee, Manhattan, and a host be- 
sides, a numberless procession. Indian names cling 
with peculiar tenacity to lakes and rivers ; for those 
hunters knew all waters, and hunted beside all 
streams and lakes. They were not seamen, and 
have left scant memorials of themselves in names 
that fringe the sea; but to lakes they cling with 
tireless tenacity. 

Let these words suffice. As one who journeys 
in circles finds no end of journeying, so I. This 



Romance of American Geography 179 

theme runs on, nor stops to catch breath. I make 
an end, therefore, not because the subject is ex- 
hausted, but because it is dismissed. But this study 
in geography is journeying among dead peoples as 
certainly as if the land were crowded with obelisk 
and tomb. To those who were and are not, say, 
Vale ! Vale ! 

"Ye who love the haunts of Nature, 
Love the sunshine of the meadow, 
lyove the shadow of the forest, 
Love the wind among the branches. 
And the rain-shower and the snowstorm, 
And the rushing of great rivers 
Through their paUsades of pine-trees. 
And the thunder in the mountains. 
Whose innumerable echoes 
Flap like eagles in their eyries, — 
Listen to these wild traditions. 
Ye who love a nation's legends. 
Love the ballads of a people. 
That like voices from afar off 
Call to us to pause and listen, 
Speak in tones so plain and childlike. 
Scarcely can the ear distinguish 
Whether they are sung or spoken, — 
Listen to this Indian Legend. 
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple. 
Who have faith in God and nature. 
Who believe that in all ages 
Every human heart is human, 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
For the good they comprehend not. 



i8o A He;ro and Some Othe;r Foi.k 

That the feeble hands and helpless, 

Groping blindly in the darkness, 

Touch God's right hand in that darkness. 

And are lifted up and strengthened, — 

Listen to this simple story. 

Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles 

Through the green lanes of the country. 

Where the tangled barberry-bushes 

Hang their tufts of crimson berries 

Over stone walls gray with mosses. 

Pause by some neglected graveyard, 

For awhile to muse, and ponder 

On a half-efifaced inscription. 

Written with little skill of song-craft, 

Homely phrases, but each letter 

Full of hope and yet of heart-break. 

Full of all the tender pathos 

Of the Here and the Hereafter, — 

Stay, and read this rude inscription." 

Only saying, Read not the "Song of Hiawatha," 
but the story of dead peoples by the ashes of their 
campfires, — these names they have left, clinging 
to places like blue to distant hills. 



VI 

Iconoclasm in Nineteenth Century 
Literature. 

THAT history repeats itself is an apothegm 
which has descended to us from a dateless 
antiquity. It has been made to serve so often as to 
become trite; and yet its use is a necessity, inas- 
much as it embodies a verity, which to ignore were 
ignorance and folly linked together; and as we 
stand on our eminence and scan the way humanity 
has worn with its multitudinous feet, as the events 
of the world pass in review before us, some so 
closely resemble others as that the one seems the 
echo of the other ; and there appears reason for that 
fascinating generalization of the . ancient philos- 
opher, that the epochs and events of the physical 
realm and history were a fixed and limited quantity, 
which, revolving in a vast cycle, would bring from 
time to time the reiteration of the facts or doings 
of an ancient era. There was no new thing think- 
able, only a reintroduction of the old. To illustrate 
this fact in brief, we have but to note the history 
of philosophy. You read the names of those who 
figure as founders of philosophical systems, and 
i8i 



1 82 A He;ro and Some Other Foi,k 

those systems seem many. Read the systems as 
founded, and you find an old-time philosophy, re- 
juvenated with some little addition of cap or bell 
better to adapt it to the modern time. The much- 
lauded Hegelian philosophy is the system of Democ- 
ritus, with the addition of a little more absurdity in 
the assertion of the identity of contradictories. The 
multitudinous philosophies may thus be reduced 
to a single quaternion, and the reputed inaugurator 
of a new philosophy is like to be a charlatan. So 
history seems but a plagiarist. 

There is an epoch in ecclesiastical history known 
as the War of the Iconoclast ; but that was only an 
embodiment of what had transpired before, and 
what has occurred often since. Iconoclasm is a bias 
of humanity. It grows out of the constitution of 
man. He is by heredity a breaker of images. If 
this view be not fictitious, we must not be surprised 
if there are developments of this spirit in our era or 
any era. It is a perennial reappearance. Whether 
it come in religion, statecraft, economic science, or 
literature, can be of little moment. The fact is the 
matter of paramount importance. Christianity was 
the iconoclast which broke in pieces the images of 
decrepit polytheism, and hewed out a way where 
progress might march to fulfill her splendid destiny, 
Luther was the inconoclast whose giant strokes 
demolished the castle doors of Romish superstition, 
and broke to fragments the images of Mariolatry. 



ICONOCIvASM IN I^ITe;rATURE 1 83 

The practical induction of Bacon, Earl of Verulam, 
was the death-warrant of the fruitless deductive 
philosophy which had culminated in the vagaries of 
Scholasticism. The Declaration of Independence 
and the Federation of the States were the iconoclast 
which slew the phantom of the divine necessity of 
kings. It is thus evident that iconoclasm abounds, 
and there will be no marvel if it have a place in 
literature. 

Innovation is a practical synonym of icono- 
clasm ; for an innovation is putting the new in the 
place of the old. In ancient literature and liter- 
atures, prose was an innovation as regards poetry; 
and later, rhyme was an innovation in the domain 
of poesy, and an innovation of such a sort that 
against it the master-poet, Milton^ lifted up his 
voice in solemn protest, and the solitary epic in 
English literature is a perpetual protestation 
against the custom. Shakespeare was an innovator 
of the laws of the drama when he violated unities 
of time and place; and In' a sense the drama was an 
innovation on narrative poetry, and the novel an 
iconoclast in its attitude to the drama. 

The iconoclasm in literature in our time is ob- 
jective rather than subjective ; and attention to the 
spirit of the age will give a practical comprehension 
of this iconoclastic spirit. 

It must be observed that the literature of an age 
is largely the product of that age. Times create 



184 A H:eRO AND Some: Othe;r Foi<k 

literatures. The literature of any period, in an em- 
phatic sense, will be directly and easily traceable to 
something in that age for its peculiarity. 

The Iliad and Odyssey were necessities of the 
age which gave them birth. In so far as a liter- 
ature is purely human, in so far will it be stamped 
with the seal of the times, customs, and thoughts 
in the midst of which it bloomed into beauty. In 
early Greek times an epic without its gods and 
demigods, without resounding battle-shout and din 
of mighty conflict, had been an anachronism for 
which there could have been offered no apology. 
The splendid era of Pericles demanded the tragedy, 
and such a tragedy as only ^schylus and Sophocles 
could originate ; while the foibles of an earlier era 
made the comedy imperative. On like principles, 
the writings of Lucretius are not enigmatical, but 
easy of explanation. 

The age which made possible the revels of 
Kenilworth, made possible also the splendor, like 
that of setting suns, which characterizes the "Faerie 
Queen." And the prowess, the achievement, the 
discovery, the colonization, the high tide of life, 
which ran like lightning through the Nation's arter- 
ies, made the drama, not only a possibility, but a 
fact. It was the embodiment of the mighty activ- 
ities of a mighty age. The tragedy, to use the 
splendid figure of Milton, "rose like an exhalation." 
A solitary lifetime brought it from sunrise to high 



ICONOCI.ASM IN lylTERATURE; 1 85 

noon; and from that hour what could the sun do 
but sink? 

Our century is one of general iconoclasm. It 
is the Ishmael among the ages. Its hand is against 
every man. It has reversed the old-time order, 
that what was believed by our fathers and received 
by them should be received by us. It takes no 
truth second-hand. It goes to sources. Its motto 
is, "I came, I saw, I investigated." It found many 
things believed of old, which were founded on the 
sand. Physical science discovered the vast domain 
of physical law, and that science began to legislate 
for the universe, forgetting sometimes that it was 
not a law enactor, but a law discoverer. Investi- 
gation found that many ideas and systems of ideas, 
supposed philosophies and sciences, were false and 
unsubstantial as the "baseless fabric of a vision.'* 
Things received as truths from time immemorial 
were shown to be untrue. The tendency of the 
human intellect is to generalize ; and finding many 
previously received systems and facts to be without 
evidence sufficient to substantiate them, there arose 
the unwilled generalization that all these systems 
are likewise false. I do not say that man has for- 
mulated this thought into speech, but that the trend 
of the intellect in our century has been such as is 
explicable only on this theory. In many instances 
the motto of investigation in the domain of history, 
criticism, and science has been, "Believe all things 



1 86 A Hbro and Some Other Foi,k 



false until yon prove them true." If such is the 
spirit of the age, and if literature be colored with 
the light of the century which produces it, shall we 
wonder if the nineteenth-century literature is dis- 
tinctively an iconoclastic one? 

All about us is the battle of the books. War 
rages along the entire line. No work of antiquity 
is free from this belligerency. Mars has the field. 
The investigation has been crucial. In so far as it 
has been learning coupled with wisdom, this is well. 
Truth never flinches before the charge of a wise 
investigation. But no truth can stand as such be- 
fore a system of inquiry the canons of which are 
empirical, fallacious, and false. The task of demo- 
lition is a fascinating one. It possesses a charm 
impossible to explain, and impossible to fail to per- 
ceive. When one has a taste, it is much as with 
the tiger which has tasted blood. Such procedure 
seems to open vistas before men. Here are open 
doors, from behind which seems to come a voice 
crying, "Enter." 

It will be chronologically accurate if we shall 
first notice the iconoclastic spirit as exemplified in 
the attack on the unity of the Iliad ; and I class this 
with the nineteenth-century doings because it be- 
longs to the spirit of that century, and was almost 
within its borders. The Iliad had been the glory 
of international literature for centuries. Greece 
held it in veneration from the beginning of its au- 



IcoNOCivASM IN L/ITkrature; 187 

thentic history ; and that work had blazed with a 
solar luster out of the Stygian darkness of prehis- 
toric times. The book had made an epoch in liter- 
ature. The cyclic poets, who, for centuries after the 
appearance of the Iliad and Odyssey, were the only 
Greek bards, were confessedly disciples of one 
Homer, the reputed author of the poems which 
embody the fact of the war of the races. The judg- 
ment of antiquity was : (a) These two works were 
ascribed to a single author, (b) This author was 
the master at whose wave of wand these revels had 
begun. In other words, Homer wrote the books 
which bear his name. However much they might 
discuss the location of the half-fabled Ilium, or 
marvel over the battles fought "far on the ringing 
plains of windy Troy/' it was not doubted that a 
sublime and solitary bard conceived and wrought 
the wondrous work ascribed to him. It is not 
shown that this question was even mooted in the 
former times. Cities contended for the honor of 
having given this man birth. He was as much a 
verity as Pericles. Such was the status of the case 
when our century beheld it first. Bentley had 
hinted at the probability or possibility of separate 
authorship; but it remained for German criticism, 
in the person of Wolf, to make the onslaught on the 
time-honored belief. The attack was as impetuous 
as the charge of the Greeks across the plain of the 
Scamander. It astonished the world. It abashed 



1 88 A Hkro and Som]S Othe;r FotK 

scholarship. Grave philosophers and gifted poets 
were carried away in the rush of the attack. Goethe 
gave and Schiller withheld allegiance. The Atom- 
ist and Separatist for a time held the field. Wolf 
showed, by reasoning which he deemed irrefutable^ 
that the Iliad couIH not have been composed by a 
single man. Writing did not exist. The story had 
many repetitions, contradictions, and inferiorities. 
Later, the philological argument was used against 
it. These statements summarize the Wolfian the- 
ory. The contrariety in dialect form w?s thought to 
be an invulnerable argument against the unity of 
authorship ; and for a time the epic of the ancient 
world was declared to be the work of many hands, 
the ballads sung by rhapsodists of many names ; 
and the Iliad, with its astonishing display of genius, 
was declared to be authorless. Less than a century 
has elapsed since the theory was propounded. The 
subject has received a wealth of attention and study 
unknown before. Discoveries have been made in 
philology which have practically raised it to the 
rank of a science ; and to-day the atomistic theory 
of Wolf is not received. Grote and Mahaffy have 
theories which vary markedly from the great orig- 
inal ; and the result of a century of investigation is, 
that scholars do now generally believe that some 
one author, or two at most, did give shape to the 
great epic of the Greek people. Wolf, Lachmann, 
and Bert have shown the follies of men of genius 



i 



IcoNoci^ASM IN I/ITe;rature; 189 

when pursuing a line of evidence to prove a favorite 
theory. Their assumptions are often absurd, and 
their conclusions, once admitting their premises, 
are a logical necessity. The spirit of iconoclasm 
rested, not with the authority of the book, but 
assailed the geographic and topographical features. 
Troy was declared a dream. The Trojan War had 
never been. But Schliemann has proven to virtual 
demonstration the existence of, not only a Troy, 
but the Troy about which Hector and Achilles 
fought. 

This iconoclasm has nowhere more fully dis- 
played itself than in its attitude toward the Bible. 
That book comes properly under the head of liter- 
ature, for the reason that the general line of attack 
during this century has been made from a literary 
standpoint. Of course, there has always been, 
whether easily discoverable or not, an undertone of 
skepticism of the rank sort. Oftentimes the battle 
has been avowedly against the book as a professed 
inspiration. Strauss and Renan made no cloak for 
their deed. But in many instances the method of 
procedure' has been to study, as under a calcium 
light, the literary style, the linguistic peculiarities, 
the whole work as a literary composition. In this 
regard the method of criticism was such as was 
used in dissecting Homer's works. Each author 
laid down canons of criticism by which to measure 
the book in question. He cut the work into frag- 



iQo A Hkro and Some Othkr Foi,e: 

merits. He stated such and such parts were the 
work of an early writer, while certain others were 
the additions of men unknown, far removed in 
time and place. For the most part these assump- 
tions were wholly arbitrary, as may be seen by 
reading the authors on the various books. The 
thing which is the m'ost observable is their lack of 
agreement, while the method used is the dogmatic. 
They all agree that the book is not of the date nor 
authorship usually assigned to it ; but what the date 
and who the author, is very seldom agreed between 
any two. The criticism is largely of the ipse dixit 
sort, and the grounds of attack are, though ration- 
alistic, seldom rationally taken. In the vaunted 
name of reason, the most monstrous absurdities are 
perpetrated. The line of argument professed to be 
used is inductive ; but in reality the inductive ele- 
ment in this criticism stands second, and the de- 
ductive element has the chief seat in the synagogue. 
The assumption in the case, the a priori, sine qua 
non ("without which nothing") — these are the all- 
important elements in the discussion. It is the 
Homeric argument restated. Each man professes 
to find his hypothesis in the structure and language 
of the book. In fact, the author usually began 
with his hypothesis, and seeks to find proofs for the 
staying his assumptions up. . The Scriptures are 
open to investigation. They^ challenge it. No one 
need offer an objection to the most scrutinizing 



ICONOCIvASM IN lylTERATURB; IQI 

inquiry. The book is here, and must stand upon 
its merits. Its high claims need not deter scholar- 
ship from its investigation. Only, to use the lan- 
guage of Bishop Butler in regard to another matter> 
"Let reason be kept to." If we are to be regaled 
with flights of imagination, let them be thus de- 
nominated; but let men not profess to be follow- 
ing the leadership of scholarship and scientific can- 
dor, when they are in reality dealing in imagination 
and scientific dogmatism, and appealing to philol- 
ogy to give them much needed support. After 
these years of attack from a literary standpoint, the 
books of the Bible are less affected than the Iliad. 
The Atomist has signally failed to make a single 
case. Iconoclasm has performed its task as best 
it could, and finds its labor lost. The criticism 
of to-day is, even in Germany, professedly in favor 
of the integrity of the Scripture. 

But I pass to another part of the literary field. 
From the Bible to Shakespeare. This, at first 
thought, may seem a long journey. There appears 
but little congruity between the two. The only 
needed connection is the similarity of attack. The 
same spirit has whetted its sword against each ; but 
the lack of similarity is more apparent than reaL 
The Bible is God's exhibit of human nature and 
its relation to the Divine personality and plans. 
Shakespeare is man's profoundest exhibit of man 
in his relation to present and future. The fields 



192 A Hkro and Some; Other Foi<k 

are the same. They differ in extent. The pro- 
foundness of Shakespeare seems a shoreward shal- 
low when viewed alongside the Bible. The Bible 
and Shakespeare have a further similarity, not one 
of character, but of results. 

Each has been a potential factor in the stability 
of the English language. They each present the 
noble possibilities of the speech of the Anglo- 
Saxon. Each has left its indelible impress on 
speech and literature. Kossuth's mastery of Eng- 
lish is by him attributed to the Bible, Shakespeare, 
and Webster's Dictionary. These were his sole 
masters, and sufficed to give him a command of lan- 
guage which ranks him among the princes of our 
English speech. That the authorship of the Iliad 
and the books of the Bible should be attacked is 
cause for little surprise. They were works of an- 
tiquity. It is an observable tendency of the mind 
to doubt a thing far removed in time. We lose 
sight of evidence. V/e dispense with the leadership 
of reason, and let inclination and imagination guide. 
This is a bias which antiquity must meet and, if it 
may, master. If the Iliad and the Bible were vul- 
nerable in this regard, Shakespeare was not. He 
was a modern. His thought is neither ancient nor 
mediaeval. He has the characteristics of modern 
life^ begotten of the hot-blooded era in which he 
lived. The modern Shakespeare is a target for the 
iconoclast. It seems but a stone's-cast from our 



ICONOCLASM IN lylTERATURS 1 93 

time to the reign of Elizabeth and the day of the 
EngHsh drama. The time was one of action in 
every department of society. Conquest, coloniza- 
tion, literature, were beginning to render the Saxon 
name illustrious. It was the epoch of chivalry and 
chivalrous procedure, such as to create a species of 
literature and bring it to a perfection which half- 
wrested the scepter of supremacy from the hand of 
the Attic tragedy. In this literature there is a name 
which dwarfs all others. Otway, Ford, Massinger, 
Webster, Ben Jonson, Green, and Marlowe (some 
of these men of surprising genius) must take a 
lower place, for the master of revels is come. 
William Shakespeare is here. His life is not 
lengthily but plainly writ. He might have said, 
as did Tennyson's Ulysses, "I am become a name." 
It would seem that a man at such a time, with such 
a reputation, would have naught to fear from icono- 
clasm, however fierce. He, in a sense, was known 
as Raleigh or Essex were not. He has put himself 
into human history^ and made the world his debtor. 
The existence of a man whose personality was ad- 
mitted by his contemporaries must be believed in. 
Stories concerning him haunted the byways of Lon- 
don and literature. Ben Jonson paid him a tardy 
tribute. Men received him as they received Chau- 
cer. But the spirit of the age finds him vulnerable. 
Delia Bacon, Smith, O'Connor, Holmes, and Don- 
nelly are leaders who deny Shakespeare's identity. 
13 



194 -A. Hero and Some; Other Folk 

I may note Donnelly, an American gentleman of 
research and painstaking which would be credit- 
able to a German scholar. He must be allowed to 
be a man of ingenuity. His method of discovering 
that Shakespeare was not himself has all the flavor 
of an invention. It glitters, not with generalities, 
but ingenuities. A sample page of his folio, cov- 
ered with hieroglyphics which mark the progress 
of finding the cipher which he thinks the plays con- 
tain — such sample page is certainly a marvel, even 
to the generation which has read with avidity 
"Robert Elsmere" and "L-ooking Backward." A 
peculiarity in it all is, that his explanation makes 
marvelous doubly so. To believe that a man should 
have hidden his authorship of such works as the 
plays of Shakespeare makes a draft on the cre- 
dulity of men too great to be borne. Why Junius 
should not have revealed himself is not difficult to 
discover. His life was at stake. But why the 
author of "The Tempest," or "King Lear," or "The 
Merchant of Venice," should have concealed his 
personality so carefully that three centuries have 
elapsed before men could discover it — ^this is an 
enigma no man can solve. In general, it is ob- 
jected by non-believers in Shakespeare that it is 
impossible to conceive of a man whose rearing pos- 
sessed so few advantages as did that of Shakes- 
peare, having written the plays attributed to him. 
This is really the strong point in the whole dis- 



ICONOCLASM IN lylTERATURE 195 

cussion. All other arguments are subordinate. It 
is admitted that it does seem impossible for the 
poacher and wild country lad to become the poet 
pre-eminent in English literature. But this ques- 
tion is not to be decided by a priori reasoning. The 
genius displayed in the dramatic works under con- 
sideration is little less than miraculous. This all 
concede. Now, history has shown that to genius 
there is a sense in which "all things are possible." 
Genius can cross the Alps, can conquer Europe, 
can dumfound the world. Genius knows no rules. 
Once allow genius, and the problem is solved. It 
is conceded that for a common man, or even for 
one of exceptional ability, to have acquired without 
help the learning which characterizes the works of 
Shakespeare is impossible. But the man who wrote 
Hamlet was no mediocre, be he Bacon or Shakes- 
peare, He was a superlative genius. This fact 
admitted, we need have no difficulty with the prob- 
lem. It becomes a question a child can answer. 
The "myriad-minded Shakespeare" could do what 
to an ordinary, or even extraordinary, man would 
be an absolute impossibility. One critic discovers 
Shakespeare to be a musician ; another, a classical 
scholar ; and so he has been claimed in almost every 
field. He was not all. So critics confound us. 
They also confound themselves. The genius which 
could write the plays could master all these, though 
he squandered his youth. Let the history of genius 



196 A Hbro and Some Other Foi^k 

guide from this labyrinth. Was not Caesar orator, 
general, historian? Was not Napoleon the same? 
Does not genius destroy all demonstrations with 
reference to itself ? Do not Pascal, Euler, Da Vinci, 
and Angelo confound us ? How dare we dogmatize 
as to the doings of genius ? Read Shakespeare, and 
find you can not discover the characteristic of the 
man. You can not in his writings read his interior 
life. David Copperfield may display Dickens, and 
Byron's poems may give us the author's auto- 
biography, and Shelley's writings may give a photo- 
graph of his intellectual self; but Shakespeare's 
plays give no clew to his character. He is all. He 
grovels in Falstafif; he' towers in Prospero. He 
smites all strings that have music in them. He 
baffles us like a spirit, hiding himself in darkness. 
To attribute the authorship of the plays to Bacon 
is, to my thought, not to rid us of our difficulty, but 
rather to increase difficulty. Bacon we know. He 
was jurist, statesman, natural philosopher. Add 
to these the possibility of his having written 
Shakespeare, and the magnificence of his achieve- 
ment would dwarf that of Shakespeare. Space for- 
bids dwelling on this longer, though the theme is 
fascinating to any lover of letters. The thought in 
this paper (and that goes without the saying) is, not 
to discuss thoroughly these various phases of lit- 
erary iconoclasm, but rather to call attention to 
them and to co-ordinate them. 



ICONOCI<ASM IN lylTKRATURE 1 97 

I desire to show that these phases of criticism 
are not difficult of explanation. These are natural, 
and are the outgrowth of an image-making age. 
Study the age, understand it thoroughly, and the 
literature of that period can hardly be a puzzling 
question. The nineteenth century will stand in 
history as the chiefest iconoclast which has arisen 
in the world's first six thousand years. And its 
science, statecraft, art, and literature will be looked 
upon ai segments of the one circle, and that circle 
the century. 



VII 

Tennyson the Dreamer 

MY earliest recollections of Alfred Tennyson 
are associated with the old Harper's volume, 
green-bound, large-paged, and frontispieced with 
two pictures of the poet — one of them, a face 
bearded, thoughtful, with eyes seeming not to see 
the near, but the remote; a head well-poised and 
noble^ with hair tangled as if matted by the wind; 
the face, as I a lad thought, of a dreamer and a 
poet ; 'and my first impressions, I think, were right, 
since the years are confirmatory of this first con- 
viction. The second portrait pictured the poet 
wrapped in his cloak, standing, lost in thought, 
alone upon a clifif, gazing solitary at the sea, and 
listening. If I do not mistake, these pictures caught 
the poet's spirit in so far as pictures can portray 
spirit. Tennyson was always alone beside a sea, 
looking, listening, dreaming; and as dreamer this 
article purposes portraying him. 

Tennyson was, his life through, a recluse. He 
dwelt apart. He was as one who stands afar off 
and listens to the shock of battle, hears the echo of 
cannon's roar, and so conceives a remote picture 

198 



Tennyson the Dreamer 199 

of the tragedy of onset, English poetry began with 
Chaucer, outrider to a king, associate with State 
affairs, participant in those turbulencies recorded 
in Froissart's voluble "Chronicles." He was a 
courtier. Camp and king's antechamber and em- 
bassage and battle made the arsis and thesis of his 
poetry, and his poems are a picture of Edward 
Ill's age, accurate as if a king's pageant passing 
flung shadow in a stream along whose bank it 
marched. Spenser was a recluse, looking on the 
world's movement as an Oriental woman watches 
the street from her latticed window. Shakespeare 
was bon vivant, a player, therefore a brief chronicler 
of that time and of all times. He floated in people 
as birds in air. Dramatists have need to study men 
and women as a sculptor does anatomy. Seclusions 
are not the qualifications for dramatic art. Dryden 
was court follower and sycophant and a literary 
debauchee. Milton was publicist. Burns, loving 
and longing for courts and society, was enforced 
in his seclusion, and therefore angry at it. Words- 
worth dwelt apart from men, as one who lives far 
from a public thoroughfare, where neither the dust 
nor bustle of travel can touch his bower of quiet; 
in its quality of isolation, Grasmere was an island 
in remote seas. Keats was a lad, dreaming in some 
dim Greek temple, listening to a fountain's plash 
at midnight which never whitened into dawn. 

Nor does there seem to be reasonable room for 



200 A He;ro and Somk Other FoiyK 

doubt that poetry, aside from the drama, gains by 
seclusion and sohtude. Much of Bayard Taylor's 
verse has a delicious flavor of poetry. He could 
write dreamily, as witness "The Metempsychosis of 
the Pine" and "Hylas," or he brings us into an 
Arab's tent as fellow-guest with him; but he be- 
longed too much to the world. Traveler, news- 
paper correspondent, translator, ambassador, he 
was all these, and his varied exploits and attrition 
of the crowded world hindered the cadences of his 
poetry. William Cullen Bryant lost as poet by 
being journalist, his vocation drying up the foun- 
tains of his poetry. America's representative poet, 
James Russell Lowell, was editor, essayist, diplo- 
mat, • poet, — in every department distinguished. 
His essay on Dante ranks him among the great ex- 
positors of that melancholy Florentine. Yet who of 
us has not wisihed he might have consecrated him- 
self to poetry as priest to the altar? We gained 
in the publicist and essayist, but lost from the poet. 
And our ultimate loss out-topped our gain ; for 
essayists and ambassadors are more numerous than 
poets. Had Lowell been a man of one service, 
and that service poetry, what might he not have 
left us as a poet's bequest ? Would he had lived in 
some forest primeval, from whose shadows moun- 
tains climbed to meet the dawns, and streams stood 
in silver pools or broke into laughter on the stones, 
and where winds among the pines were constant 



Tknnyson the; Dreamer 201 

ministrants of melody ! Solitudes minister to poets. 
You can hear a fountain best at midnight, because 
then quiet rules. 

Tennyson was a solitary. Hallam Tennyson's 
biography of the laureate resents the opinion that 
his father was unsocial, but really leaves the com- 
monly-received opinion unrefuted. Tennyson's 
reticence and love of contemplation and aloneness 
amounted to a passion. He was not a man of the 
people. He fled from tourists as if they brought a 
plague with them. He did nothing but dream. 
You might as easily catch the whip-poor-will, 
whose habitation changes at an approaching step, as 
Tennyson. His was not in the widest sense a com- 
panionable nature. He cared to be alone and to be 
let dream, and resented intrusioin and a disturbance 
of his solitude. Some have dreamless sleep, like 
the princess in "The Sleeping Beauty ;" others sleep 
to dream, and to walce them by a hand's touch or 
a voice, however loved, would be to break the sweet 
continuity of their dreams. Seeing Tennyson was 
as he was, his solitude helped him. I think moon- 
light was wine to his spirit, and the dim voices of 
rolling breakers heard afar woke his passion and 
his poetry. The 

"Break, break, break, 
On thy cold, gray stones, O sea!" 

was what his spirit needed as qualification to 

"Utter the thoughts that arise in me." 



202 A HsRO AND SoM:e Othejr FoIvK 

A dramatist needs the touching of Hving hands and 
sound of Uving human voices, the uproar of the 
human sea; for is he not poet of street and court 
and market-place and hoHday? But there is a 
poetry which needs these accessories as Httle as a 
lover needs a throng to keep him company. 
Tennyson's poetry was such. We are not to con- 
ceive him as Lord Tennyson and inhabitant of the 
House of Lords. He did not belong there save as 
a recognition of splendid ability. If we are to get 
a clew to his genius, he must always be conceived 
as a recluse, who truly heard the world's words, but 
at a dim remove. There is remoteness in his 
poetry. The long ago was the day whose sunlight 
flooded his path. The illustrious Greek era and 
the Mediaeval Age were fields where his hosts mus- 
tered for battle. Consider how little of Tennyson's 
noblest poetry belongs to his own era. "The May 
Queen;" "Locksley Hall," and its complement, 
^'Sixty Years After;" "In a Hospital Ward;" "The 
Grandmother ;" his patriotic effusions ; "Maud ;'* 
and "In Memoriam," sum up the modern contri- 
butions ; nor is all of this impregnated with a genu- 
inely modern spirit. "Enoch Arden" might have 
belonged to a lustrum of centuries ago, and "The 
May Queen" to remote decades. He writes in the 
nineteenth century, rarely of it, though, as is in- 
evitable, he colors his thoughts of long-ago yester- 
days with the colors of to-day. He is not strictly 



TENNYSON THK Dre;ame;r 203 

a contemporaneous poet. "Dora," "The Gardener's 
Daughter," and others of the sort, have no time 
ear-marks. "The Princess" discusses a Hving prob- 
lem, but fro'm the artistic background of a knightly 
era. "Locksley Hall," earlier and later, "Maud" 
and "In Memoriam" are about the only genuinely 
contemporaneous poems. My suggestion is, 
Tennyson hugs the shadows of yesterdays; nor 
need we go far to find the philosophy of this seizure 
of the past. Romance gathers in twilights. It is 
hard to persuade ourselves that those heroisms 
which make souls mighty as the gods, belong to 
here and now. Imagination fixes this golden age 
in what Tennyson would call "the underworld" of 
time. Greek mythology was the essential poetry 
of nature, and medisevalism the essential poetry of 
manhood. Nothing, as appears to me, was more 
accurate and in keeping with Tennysonian genius 
than this choosing Greek antiquity and mediasvalism 
as the theater for his poetry ; for he was the chief 
romance poet since Edmund Spenser. Spenser 
and Tennyson are the poets laureate of chivalry. 
What Spenser did in his age, that Tennyson did in 
his. So recall the chronological location of Tenny- 
son's poetry. "Tithonus," "CEnone," "Ulysses," 
"Tiresias," "Amphion," "The Hesperides," "The 
Merman," "Demeter and Persephone." Do we not 
seem rather reading titles from some classic poet 
than from a poet of the nineteenth century ? 



204 A Hero and Some; Other Foi,k 

The historical trilogy belongs to the mediaeval 
centuries; "Harold," "a Becket," and "Queen 
Mary" are of yesterday. Tennyson reached back- 
ward, as a child reaches over toward its mother. 
"Boadicea" belongs to a still earlier age of EngHsh 
history ; and certainly "The Idyls of the King" "Sir 
Galahad," "St. Simeon Stylites," "St. Agnes," "The 
Mystic," "Medin and the Gleam," belong to the 
romantic, half-hidden era of history and of thought. 
"Sir John Oldcastle" and "Columbus" belong to the 
visible historic era, while in his wonderful "Rizpah" 
the poet has knit the present to dim centuries of the 
remotest past ; and the tragic "Lucretius" takes us 
once more into the classic period. To the purely 
romantic belong "Recollections of the Arabian 
Nights," "The Lotos-Eaters," "The Talking Oak," 
"A Dream of Fair Women," and "Godiva." Now 
subtract these poems and their kin from the bulk 
of Tennyson's poetry, and the remainder will ap- 
pear comparatively small. Certainly we may affirm 
with safety that Tennyson was poet of the past. 

You can get the poetry of the Alhambra only 
by moonlight; and to a mind so wholly poetic as 
Tennyson's it seemed possible to get the poetry of 
conduct only by seeing it in the moonlight of de- 
parted years. To-day is matter-of-fact in dress and 
design ; medisevalism was fanciful, picturesque^ ro- 
mantic. Chivalry was the poetry of the Christ in 
civilization ; and the knight warring to recover the 



Tknnyson the Dre;ame;r 205 

tomb of God was the poem among soldiers, and in 
entire consonance with his nature, Tennyson's 
poetic genius flits back into the poetic days, as I 
have seen birds flit back into a forest. In Tenny- 
son's poetry two things are clear. They are medi- 
seval in location; they are modern in temper. 
Their geography is yesterday, their spirit is to-day ; 
and so we have the questions and thoughts of our 
era as themes for Tennyson's voice and lute. His 
treatment is ancient : his theme is recent. He 
has given diagnosis and alleviation of present sick- 
ness, but hides face and voice behind morion and 
shield. 

Tennyson celebrates the return to nature. This 
return "The Poet's Song" voices: 

"The rain had fallen, the Poet arose; 

He passed by the town and out of the street; 
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, 

And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 
And he sat him down in a lonely place, 

And chanted a melody loud and sweet, 
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, 

And the lark drop down at his feet. 

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee. 

The snake slipt under a spray; 
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, 

And stared, with his foot on the prey; 
And the nightingale thought, *I have sung many 
songs, 

But never a one so gay; 
For he sings of what the world will be 

When the years have died away.' " 



2o6 A Hbro and Som:^ Othkr Foi^k 

Away from palaces to solitude; out of cities to 
hedgerows and the woods and wild-flowers, — there 
is the secret of perennial poetry. And Tennyson, 
is the climax of this dissent from Pope and Dryden 
as elaborated in Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, 
Thomson, and Wordsworth. The best of this 
wine was reserved for the last of the feast; for 
Tennyson appears to me the greatest of the nature 
poets. And this return to nature, as the phrase 
goes, means taking this earth as a whole, which we 
are to do more and still more. Thomson's poetry 
was not pastoral poetry at its best; seeing inani- 
mate nature is not in itself sufficient theme for 
poetry, lacking passion, depth, power. Sunrise, 
and flowing stream, and tossing seas are valuable 
as associates of the soul and helping it to self- 
understanding. Tennyson took both men and 
nature into his interpretation of nature. His 
voice it is, saying, 

"O would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me!" 

The sea helps the soul's lack by supplying words 
and music. Tennyson never was at his best in a 
National Ode, unless one speaks from the elocu- 
tionary standpoint, because such tasks lack the 
poetical essential of spontaneity, and because, too, 
the ithemes seem to carry hirn outside of his nature- 
mood. Art in our century has gone out of doors. 



TiENNYSON THE DrEAMER 207 

Scenery has never had lovers as now ; and partici- 
pative in this mood is Tennyson. He Hves under 
the sky. He loved to be alone ; and nature is lone- 
liness as well as loveliness. Nor is his love of 
nature a passing passion, but is passionate, intense, 
endearing. He never outgrew it. "Balin and 
Balan" is as beautiful with nature-similes as were 
"Enid" and "CEnone." In Tennyson we have the 
odors of the country and the sea and the dewy 
night. He is laureate of the stars. Nature is not 
introduced, but his poems seem set in nature as 
daisies in a meadow. He was no city poet. Of the 
poet Blake, James Thomson writes : 

"He came to the desert of London town 
Gray miles long. 

He wandered up, he wandered down. 
Singing a quiet hymn." 

Not so Tennyson. London and he were com- 
patriots, but not friends; for he belonged to the 
quiet of the country woods, and the clamor of sea- 
gulls and sea-waves, whose very tumult drown the 
voice of care. Tennyson was to express the yearn- 
ing of his era, and his poems are a cry; for, like a 
babe, he has 

"No language but a cry." 

Our yearning is our glory. The superb forces of 
our spirits are inarticulate, and can not be put to 

words, but may be put to the melody of a yearning 



2o8 A Hejro and Some Othe;r Folk 

cry. Souls struggle toward expression like a dying 
soldier who would send a message to his beloved, 
but can not frame words therefor before he dies. 
Our pathos is — and our yearning is — 

"O would that my lips could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me!" 

But we have no words; and Holmes, in his most 
delicately-beautiful poem, entitled "The Voiceless," 
has made mention of this grief: 

"We count the broken lyres that rest 

Where the sweet wailing singers slumber; 
But o'er their silent sister's breast 

The wild-flowers, who will stoop to number? 
A few can touch the magic string, 

And noisy Fame is proud to win them: 
Alas for those that never sing, 

But die with all their music in them! 

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone, 

Whose song has told their heart's sad story, — 
Weep for the voiceless, who have known 

The cross without the crown of glory! 
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep 

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, 
But where the glistening night-dews weep 

On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 

* O hearts that break and give no sign 

Save whitening lip and fading tresses, 
Till Death pours out his cordial wine. 

Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses, — 



TENNYSON the; Dre;ame;r 209 

If singing breath or echoing chord 

To every hidden pang were given, 
What endless melodies were poured. 

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven !" 

Souls cry, "Give us a voice ;" and nature enters 
into our yearning moods. The autumn and the rain 
grieve with us, and June makes merry with us as at 
a festival, and the deep sky gives room for the soar- 
ing of our aspirations, and the solemn night says, 
"Dream !" And for our heartache and longing, 
Tennyson is our voice ; for he seems near neighbor 
to us. He lay on a bank of violets, and looked into 
the sky, and heard poplars pattering as with rain 
upon the roof. Really, in all Tennyson's poems 
you will be surprised at the affluence of his refer- 
ence to nature. His custom was to make the moods 
of nature to be explanatory of the moods of the 
soul. Man needs nature as birds need air, and 
flowers, and waving trees, and the dear sun. 
Tennyson will make appeal to 

"The flower in the crannied wall" 

by way of silencing the agnostic's prating against 
God. Hear him : 

"Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, * 
Little flower, — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 
14 



2IO A Hi;ro and Some) Othi^r Foi<k 



Here follow a few^ among many, very many, de- 
licious references to the out-of-door world we name 
nature, as explanatory of the indoor world we call 
soul: 

"Who make it seem more sweet to be 
The little life on bank and brier, 
The bird that pipes his lone desire 
And dies unheard within his tree." 

"A thousand suns will stream on thee, 
A thousand moons will quiver; 
But not by thee my steps shall be. 
Forever and forever." 

"Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale." 

"I saw that every morning, far withdrawn. 
Beyond the darkness and the cataract, 
God made himself an awful rose of dawn. 
Unheeded." 

"There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; 
But thou go by." 

"As through the land at eve we went. 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears. 
We fell out, my wife and I, — 
O we fell out, I know not why. 

And kiss'd again with tears. 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years, 
There above the little grave, — 
O there above the little grave. 

We kiss'd again with tears." 



TkNNYSON the) DrE;AME;r 211 

"Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 
When storm is on the heights of the long hills." 

"Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
When the tide ebbs in sunshine." 

'Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; 
The cloud may stoop from heaven, and take the shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 
But O too fond, when have I answered thee? 
Ask me no more." 

"And she, as one that climbs a peak to gaze 
O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night." 

"That like a broken purpose wastes in air." 

"To rest beneath the clover sod, 

That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
The chalice of the grapes of God." 

"So be it: there no shade can last 

In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 
The eternal landscape of the past." 

"I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray." 

"But Summer on the steaming floods. 

And Spring that swells the narrow brooks, 
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, 
That gather in the waning woods." 

"From belt to belt of crimson seas, 
On leagues of odor streaming far, 
To where in yonder Orient star 
A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.' " 



212 A Heiro and Som:^ Othe;r Foi,k; 



"There rolls the deep where grew the tree: 

earth, what changes thou hast seen! 
There where the long street roars, hath been 

The stillness of the central sea. 

The hills are shadows, and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing stands; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands. 

Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 

"If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 

1 heard a voice, 'Believe no more,* 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 

That tumbled in the godless deep." 

"As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, 
Running too vehemently to break upon it." 

"Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the clifif, 
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers; 
And high above a piece of turret stair, 
Worn by the feet that now were silent, would 
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems 
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibered arms, 
And suck'd the joining of the stones, and look'd 
A knot, beneath, of snakes; aloft, a grove." 

"For as a leaf in mid-November is 
To what it was in mid-October, seem'd 
The dress that now she look'd on to the dress 
She look'd on ere the coming of Geraint." 

"That had a sapling growing on it, slip 
From the long shore-clifif's windy walls to the beach, 
And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew: 
So lay the man transfixt." 



Tennyson the Dreamer 213 

"For one 
That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, 
All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears 
The drumming thunder of the huger fall 
At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear 
His voice in battle, and be kindled by it." 

"And in the moment after, wild Limours, 
Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud 
Whose skirts are loosen'd by the breaking storm. 
Half ridden off with by the thing he rode. 
And all in passion, uttering a dry shriek, 
Dash'd on Geraint." 

"Where, like a shoaling sea, the lovely blue 
Play'd into green, and thicker down the front 
With jewels than the sward with drops of dew. 
When all nigTit long a cloud clings to the hill. 
And with the dawn ascending lets the day 
Strike where it clung: so thickly shone the gems." 

"As the southwest that blowing Bala Lake 
Fills all the sacred Dee. So past the days." 

"In the midnight and flourish of his May." 

"Only you would not pass beyond the cape 
That has the poplar on it." 

"And at the inrunning of a little brook. 
Sat by the river in a cove and watch'd 
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 
And saw the barge that brought her moving down, 
Far off, a blot upon the stream, and said, 
Low in himself, 'Ah, simple heart and sweet, 
You loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
Far tenderer than my Queen's!' " 



214 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 

"Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 
As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
A little bitter pool about a stone 
On the bare coast." 

"A carefuler in peril did not breathe 
For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast 
Than Enoch. . . . And he thrice had pluck'd a life 
From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas." 

"All-kindled by a still and sacred fire. 
That burned as on an altar." 

"With kisses balmier than half-opening buds 
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd. 
Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet. 
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
While Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers." 

"Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life 
Shoots to the fall." 

"That sets at twilight in a land of reeds." 

"And wearying in a land of sand and thorns." 

"Pelleas and sweet smell of the fields 
Past, and the sunshine came along with him." 

"By a mossed brookbank on a stone 
I smelt a wildweed flower alone; 
There was a ringing in my ears. 
And both my eyes gushed out with tears." 

"Clash like the coming and retiring wave." 

"Quiet as any water-sodden log 
Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook." 

"The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh." 



Tennyson the; Dre;amer 215 

From these quotations, not exhaustive, but rep- 
resentative, one may see in how gracious a sense 
Tennyson was a pastoral poet, in that he and his 
thought haunted the brookside and the mountain- 
side, the shadow and the sunshine, the dark night, 
or dewy eve, or the glad dawn, always. Therefore 
is Tennyson a rest to the spirit. He takes you 
from your care, and ends by taking your care from 
you. He quiets your spirit. I go to his poems as 
I would go to seashore or mountain; and a quiet 
deep, as the gently falling night, wraps my spirit. 
Bless him always for the rest he knows to give and 
cares to give ! 

Tennyson's genius is lyrical rather than either 
dramatic or epic. What music is like his? Say of 
his poems, in words of James Whitcomb Riley, 

"O but the sound was rainy sweet!" 

Not great Milton was more master of music than 
he ; though Milton's was the melody of wide ocean 
in open sea, or crash of waves upon the rugged 
rocks, or wrathing up the yellow sands in tumult 
of majestic menace. Tennyson's music is rather 
the voice of gentle waters, or the cadence of sum- 
mer's winds in the tree-tops, or like human voices 
heard in some woodland. In either poet is no 
marred music, Mrs. Browning fell out of time; 
Tennyson never. His verse is like some loved 
voice which makes perpetual music in our heart. 



2i6 A Hkro and Som:^ Othejr Foi<k 



Read all of his poetry^ and how diversified soever 
his meter is, music never fails ; yet his lyrics are not 
as those of Burns, whose words sing like the brook 
Tennyson has sung of. Burns's melody is laughter : 
it babbles, it sighs for a moment, but will sing. But 
Tennyson's is not laughter. He is no joyous poet. 
Burns has tears which wet his lashes, scarcely his 
cheeks. Tennyson's cheeks are wet. He is the 
music of winds in pine-trees in a lonely land, or as 
a sea breaking upon a shore of rock and wreck ; 
but how passing sweet the music is, stealing your 
ruggedness away, so that to be harsh in thought 
or diction in his presence seems a crime ! 

Lyric dififers from epic poetry in sustainedness. 
One form of poetry runs into another imperceptibly, 
as darkness into daylight or daylight into dark- 
ness, so that the dividing line can not be certified. 
Lyric poetry may be dramatic in spirit, as Brown- 
ing's "The Ring and the Book ;" or dramatic poetry 
may be lyric in spirit, as Milton's "Comus," 
Tennyson has written drama and epic too ; for 
such, I think, clearly he proposed the "Idyls of 
the King" to be. This we must say : Despite the 
genial leniency of Robert Browning's criticism of 
the dramatic success of "Harold," and "Becket," 
and "The Cup," we may safely refuse concurrence 
in judgment. Irving made the failure of the play 
impossible when he was character in them. There 
is no necessity of denying that the so-called trilogy 



T:^NNYSON THK DrBAM^R 217 

has apt delineation of character, and that Green, 
the historian^ was justified in saying that "Becket" 
had given him such a conception of the character 
of that courtier and ecclesiastic as all his historical 
research had not given; nor need we deny that 
these dramas are rich in noble passages. These 
things go without the saying, considering the au- 
thor was Alfred Tennyson. In attempting a criti- 
cism of the dramatic value, however, the real ques- 
tion is this: Would not "Harold" and "Queen 
Mary" have been greater poems if thrown out of 
the dramatic into the narrative form, like "Guine- 
vere" or "Enoch Arden?" "Maud" is really the 
most dramatic of Tennyson's poems, and in conse- 
quence the least understood. Most men at some 
time espouse what they can not successfully 
achieve. Was not this Tennyson's case? Are not 
the portrayal of character and the rhythm and the 
melody of the drama qualities inherent in Tenny- 
son, and are they in any distinct sense dramatic? 
If we declare Tennyson neither epic nor dramatic, 
but always lyric, adverse criticism melts away like 
snow in summer. As lyrist, all is congruous and 
enthralhng. "The Idyls of the King," as a series of 
lyric romances, is beyond blame in technique. 
Tennyson tells a story. Dramatic poetry takes the 
story out of the poet's lips and tells itself. The epic 
requires a strong centrality of theme, movement, 
and dominancy, like a ubiquitous sovereign whose 



2i8 A Hero and Somk Other Foi,k 

power is always felt in every part of his empire. 
Viewing "The Idyls of the King" as singing epi- 
sodes, told us by some wandering minstrel, not 
only do they not challenge hostile criticism, but 
they take rank among the noblest contributions to 
the poetry of any language. "Columbus," "Ulys- 
ses," "Eleanore," "Enoch Arden," "Lucretius," 
"The Day-Dream," "Locksley Hall," "Dora," "Ayl- 
mer's Field," "The Gardener's Daughter," have all 
the subdued beauty of Wordsworth's narrative 
poems, and are as certainly lyric as those unap- 
proachable lyrics in "The Princess." The ocean 
is epic in its vast expanse ; tragic in its power to 
crush Armadas on the rocks and let them 

"Rot in ribs of wreck;" 

and lyric in its songs, whether of storm outsound- 
ing cataracts, or the singing scarce above the breath 
of waves that silver the shores of summer seas. 
Commend me to the ocean, and give all the ocean 
to me. Dispossess me of no might nor tragedy nor 
melody. Let the whole ocean be mine. So, though 
Tennyson be not epic as Milton, nor dramatic as 
Browning, he is yet a mine of wealth untold. He 
Is more melodious than Spenser (and what a 
praise!) Tennyson can not write the prose, but 
always the poetry of life. So interpreted, how per- 
fect his execution becomes ! His words distill like 
dews. Take unnumbered extracts from his poems. 



Tennyson the Drbamer 219 

and they seem bits of melody, picked out from na- 
ture's book of melodies, and in themselves and as 
related they satisfy the heart. Let these songs sing 
themselves to us : 

"Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; 

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? 

I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; 

Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd; 

I strove against the stream and all in vain; 

Let the great river take me to the main; 
No more, dear Love, for at a touch I yield; 
Ask me no more." 

"Thy voice is heard through rolling drums. 

That beat to battle where he stands; 
Thy face across his fancy comes. 

And gives the battle to his hands: 
A moment, while the trumpets blow. 

He sees his brood about thy knee; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee." 

"O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
They faint on hill or field or river; 



!:1) 



220 A Hero and Somk Other Folk: 

Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying." 

"Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 

Low, low, breathe and blow. 

Wind of the western sea! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow, 

Blow him again to me; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 

Father will come to thee soon; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon: 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep." 

And "Tears, Idle Tears," is beyond all praise. 
Passion was never wed to music more deliciously 
and satisfyingly. I am entranced by this poem 
always, as by God's poem of the starry night : 

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean; 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes 
In looking on the happy autumn-fields. 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail. 

That brings our friends up from the under world; 



Tennyson the; Dreamer 221 

Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 

The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 

All these lyrics are such deHghts as leave us 
silent, seeing we have no words to tell the glow of 
spirit we feel. The genius of lyric poetry is its 
power of condensation. The drama may expand, 
the lyric must condense, and Tennyson has the 
lyric power, summing up large areas of thought and 
feeling into a single sentence or a few verses, which 
presents the quintessence of the lyric method. Im- 
mense passion poured into the chalice of a solitary 
utterance — this is a song. Let the harpist sit and 
sing, nor stop to wipe his tears what time he sings, 
— only let him sing! Tennyson was as some rare 
voice which never grows husky, but always sounds 
sweet as music heard in the darkness, and when he 
speaks, it is as if 

"Up the valley came a swell of music on the wind." 



222 A Hero and Somk Othkr Foi.k 

Tennyson is poet of love. Love is practically 
always the soil out of which his flowers grow. 
Our American bards say little of love, and we 
feel the lack keenly. Love is the native noble- 
man among soul-qualities, and we have become 
schooled to feel the poets must be our spokes- 
men here where we need them most. But Bry- 
ant, nor Whittier, nor Longfellow, nor yet 
Lowell, have been in a generous way erotic 
poets. They have lacked the pronounced passion 
element. Poe, however, was always lover when 
he wrote poetry, and Bayard Taylor has a re- 
curring softening of the voice to a caress when 
his eyes look love. Tennyson, on the contrary, 
is scarcely less a love poet than Burns, though 
he tells his secret after a different fashion. Call 
the roll of his poems, and see how just this ob- 
servation is. Love is nodal with him as with 
the heart. Bourdillon was right in saying: 

"The night has a thousand eyes, 
The day has one; 
Yet the light of the bright world dies 
With the dying sun. 

The mind has a thousand eyes, 

And the heart but one; 
Yet the life of a whole life dies 

When love is done." 

In many poets, love is background, not pic- 
ture, or, to change a figure as is meet, love is. 



Tennyson the Dreamer 223 

a minor chord in song. In Shelley, I would say- 
that love was a sort of afterglow upon the' land- 
scape, and softens his rigid anarchy into some- 
thing like beauty. With Tennyson is a very dif- 
ferent offering to love. It is omnipresent, though 
not obtrusively so ; for he never obtrudes his 
main meanings. They rather steal on you as 
springtime does. You catch his meaning because 
you are not blind nor deaf. He hints at things 
as lovers do, and is as one who would not thrust 
his company upon you, so modest and reticent 
is he ; yet we do not mistake him. Love is always 
close at hand, and in some form is never absent. 
"Mariana," "Lady of Shalott," "Locksley Hall," 
"Maud," "The Sisters," "The Talking Oak," 
"Edward Gray," "The Miller's Daughter," "Har- 
old," "Queen Mary," "Enoch Arden," and "The 
Idyls of the King," — is not love everywhere? 
These are poems of love between men and 
women as lovers ; but there' is other love. In Ten- 
nyson: love of country, as in his "The Revenge," 
"The Charge of the Light Brigade," and others ; 
love of nature, as "The Brook ;" the love of Queen, 
as in the dedication in "The Idyls of the King;" 
love of a friend (and such love !) flooding "In 
Memoriam" like spring tide's; love to God, as 
"St. Agnes' Eve," "Sir Galahad," and in "King 
Arthur." By appeal to book do we see how his 
poems constitute a literature of love ; for he is 



224 A Hkro and Somk Othkr FoIvK. 

in essence saying continuously, "Life means 
love," and we shall not be those to say him 
nay. May we not safely say no poet has given a 
more beautiful and sympathetic explication of 
love in its entirety? Browning has expressed the 
sex-love more mightily in Pompilia and Capon- 
sacchi. Tennyson has, however, given no par- 
tial landscape; he has presented the whole. 
Love of the lover, of the widowed heart, of the 
friend, of the parent, of the patriot, of the sub- 
ject to sovereign, of the redeemed of God. 
Truly, this does impress us as a nearly-completed 
circle. If it is not, where lies the lack? Love 
is life, gladness, pathos, power. A humblest 
spirit, when touched with the unspeakable grace 
of love, becomes epic and beautiful, as is illus- 
trated in "Enoch Arden." Herein see a sure 
element of immortality in Tennyson. The race 
will always with alacrity and sympathy read of 
love in tale or poem; and this poet is always 
translating love's thought into speech. 

And may not this prevalence of love in his 
poetry account for Tennyson's lack of humor? 
In his conversation, as his son tells us, he was 
even jocular, loving both to hear and to tell a 
humorous incident, and his laughter rang out 
over a good jest, a thing of which we would have' 
next to no intimation in his poetry; for save in 
"Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue" and 



T:]eNNYSON THK DrEAMEIK 225 

"The Northern Farmer," and possibly in "Am- 
phion," his verse contains scarcely a vestige of 
humor. Certainly his writings can not presume 
to be humorous. To Cervantes, chivalry was 
grotesque ; to Tennyson, chivalry was poetry, — 
there lay the difference. Our laureate caught not 
the jest, but the real poetry of that episode in the 
adventure of manhood; and this I take to be the 
larger and worthier lesson. Cervantes and Tenny- 
son were both right. But Tennyson caught the 
vision of the surer, the more enduring truth. 
With love, as with chivalry, he saw not the humor, 
but the beauty of it ; and beauty is always touched 
with melancholy. I have sat a day through read- 
ing all this poet's verse, and confess that all the 
day I was not remote from tears, but was as one 
walking in mists along an ocean shore, so that 
on my face was what might be either rain or 
tears. In Tennyson, 

"Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in its 

glowing hands; 
Every moment lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the 

chords with might; 
Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music 

out of sight." 

And Tennyson is the picture poet. I feel in 
reading him as if I were either out of doors with 
pictures seen at first-hand, or in a gallery with 
15 



226 A He;ro and Some; Othkr FoIvK 

picture-crowded walls. He is painter among 
poets, his art being at once admirably inclusive 
and exclusive — including essentials, excluding the 
irrelevant. He is consummate artist, giving pic- 
tures of things, and, what is vastly more difficult, 
pictures of moods. With him, one never feels 
and sees, but feels because he sees. His ability 
to recreate moods for us is quite beyond praise', 
and is such subtle art as defies analysis or char- 
acterization, but wakens wonder and will not let 
it sleep. Poets are, as is affirmed by the lord of 
all the poets, 

"Of imagination all compact;" 

and may we be delivered from a colorless world 
and an unimaginative life; for such is no life at 
all ! God would have men dream and prophesy. 
Because the poet is artist and dreamer, his word, 
in one form or another, is "like," a word patented 
by poets ; and all who use it are become, in so far, 
poets. Now, with Tennyson, all things suggest 
pictures, as if soul we're itself a landscape ; where- 
fore, as has been shown, he riots in nature-scenes. 
A simile, when full, like a June day of heaven, 
contains a plethora, an ampleness, for which you 
shall seek in vain to find rules, much less to make 
them; which is to say that a perfect simile will 
betimes do something for which no reason can 
be assigned, yet so answering to the largest poetry 



Te;nnyson 'T-H.TSi Drbiamer 227 

of the occasion as to fill the mind with joy, as if 
one had discovered some new flower in the woods 
where he thought he knew them all. One in- 
stance shall suffice as illustrative: 

"An agony 
Of lamentation like a v/ind, that shrills 
All night in a waste land, where no one comes. 
Or hath come, since the making of the world." 

Considering- the comparison, we must grant 
that, submitted to the judgment of cold logic, the 
figure is superfluous and faulty; for, as a simple' 
matter of fact, a wind blowing where no one 
comes or has come would be not so lonely as one 
blown across a habitable and inhabited land. 
From the standpoint of common observation, the 
simile might be set down as inaccurate. But 
who so blind as not to see that there is no un- 
truth nor superfluity in the poet's art? He 
means to give the air of utter loneliness and sad- 
ness, and therefore pictures an untenanted land- 
scape, across whose lonely wastes a lonely wind 
pursues its lonely way; and thus having saturated 
his thought with sadness, he transfers the lone- 
liness of the landscape to the winged winds. 
This seems to me the very climacteric of exquisite 
artistic skill, and I am always delighted to the 
point of laughter or of tears ; for moods run to- 
gether in presence of such poetry. No poet of 
my knowledge so haunts the illustrative. In 



228 A HieRO AND Some) Othi^r Foi,k 

reading him, so perfect are the pictures that your 
fingers itch to play the artist's part, so you might 
shadow some beauty on every page. Some 
painter, working after the manner of Turner's 
"Rivers of France," might make himself im- 
mortal by devoting his life to the adequate illus- 
tration of Tennyson, As his verses sing them- 
selves, so his poems picture themselves. He 
supplies you with painter's genius. A verse or 
stanza needs but a frame to be a choice painting. 
When told that the fool 

"Danced like a withered leaf before the hall," 

we' must see him, so vivid the scene, so lifelike the 
color. 

I will hang some pictures up as in a gallery : 

■ "Ever the weary wind went on, 

And took the reed-tops as it went" 

"I, that whole day, 
Saw her no more, although I linger'd there 
Till every daisy slept." 

"Love with knit brows went by, 
And with a flying finger swept my lips." 

"Breathed like the covenant of a God, to hold 
From thence through all the worlds." 

"Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind. 
And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep." 

"The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores." 



Tennyson the Dreamer 229 

"And in the fallow leisure of my life." 

"Her voice fled always through the summer land; 
I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! 
The flower of each, those moments when we met, 
The crown of all, we met to part no more." 

"Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs 
Of life." 

"The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit 
Of wisdom. Wait." 

"Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
When the tide ebbs in sunshine." 

"Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 
By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 
And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 
But such as gather'd color day by day." 

"I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, 
And can not speak, nor move, nor make one sign. 
But lies and dreads his doom." 

"Behold, ye speak an idle thing: 
Ye never knew the sacred dust; 
I do but sing because I must. 
And pipe but as the linnets sing. 

I hold it true, whate'er befall; 

I feel it, when I sorrow most; 

'T is better to have loved and lost, 
Than never to have Joved at all. 



230 A Hkro and Some; Othe;r F01.K 

But brooding on the dear one dead. 
And all he said of things divine, 
(And dear to me as sacred wine 

To dying lips is all he said). 

And look thy look, and go thy way. 

But blame not thou the winds that make 
The seeming-wanton ripple break. 

The tender-pencil'd shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears, 
Ah me! the sorrow deepens down. 
Whose mufHed motions blindly drown 

The bases of my life in tears. 

Be near me when my light is low, 

When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick. 
And tingle; and the heart is sick. 

And all the wheels of being slow. 

I can not love thee as I ought, 

For love reflects the thing beloved; 
My words are only words, and moved 

Upon the topmost froth of thought. 

From point to point, with power and grace 
And music in the bounds of law. 
To those conclusions when we saw 

The God within him light his face. 

And while the wind began to sweep 
A music out of sheet and shroud, 
We steer'd her toward a, crimson cloud 

That landlike slept along the deep. 



Tknnyson the; Dreamer 231 

Abiding with me till I sail 

To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
And this electric force, that keeps 

A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 

And hear at times a sentinel, 

Who moves about from place to place. 
And whispers to the worlds of space. 

In the deep night, that all is well." 

"Brawling, or like a clamor of the rooks 
At distance, ere they settle for the night." 

"In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet." 

"That I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows." 

"But as a man to whom a dreadful loss 
Falls in a far land, and he knows it not." 

"The long way smoke beneath him in his fear." 

"Then, after all was done that hand could do. 
She rested, and her desolation came 
Upon her, and she wept beside the way." 

"Seam'd with an ancient sword-cut on the cheek. 
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 
And loved him, with that love which was her doom." 

"And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 
And poplars made a noise of falling showers." 

"No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
Of greatness to know well I am not great." 

"Hurt in the side, whereat she caught her breath; 
Through her own side she felt the sharp lance go." 



232 A Hero and Somk Other FoIvK 

"Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 
As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
A little bitter pool about a stone 
On the bare coast." 

"Thy shadow still would glide from room to room. 
And i should evermore be vext with thee 
In hanging robe or vacant ornament, 
Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair." 

"Far off a solitary trumpet blew. 
Then, waiting by the doors, the war-horse neigh'd 
As at a friend's voice, and he spake again." 

"Through the thick night I hear the trumpet blow." 

"And slipt aside, and like a wounded life 
Crept down into the hollows of the wood." 

"Then Philip, with his eyes 
Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice 
Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand." 

"Had he not 
Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone. 
Surely the man had died of solitude." 

"Because things seen are mightier than things heard." 

"For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
See through the gray skirts of a lifting squall 
The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
To save the life despair'd of, than he saw 
Death dawning on him, and the close of all." 

"And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced 
Back toward his solitary home again, 



Tbnnyson the Dreamer 233 

All down the narrow street he went, 
Beating it in upon his weary brain, 
As though it were the burthen of a song, 
'Not to tell her, never to let her know.' " 

"Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
In tempest." 

"Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, 
Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere." 

"Prick'd with incredible pinnacles into heaven." 

"An out-door sign of all the warmth within. 
Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud; 
But Heaven had meant it for a sunny one." 

"All the old echoes hidden in the wall." 

"Their plumes driv'n backward by the wind they made 
In moving, all together down upon him 
Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North sea, 
Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all 
Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, 
Down on a bark, and overbears the bark, 
And him that helms it, so they overbore 
Sir Lancelot and his charger." 

"There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier 
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 
The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen. 
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine. 
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down 
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars 
The long brook falling through the clov'n ravine 



234 A Hkro and Some; Othkr Folk 

In cataract after cataract to the sea. 

Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 

Stands up and takes the morning; but in front 

The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal 

Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel. 

The crown of Troas." 

"One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand. 
And some one pacing there alone, 
Who paced forever in a glimmering land, 
Lit with a low large moon. 

One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. 

You seem'd to hear them climb and fall 
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, 

Beneath the windy wall. 

And one, a full-fed river winding slow 

By herds upon an endless plain. 
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low. 

With shadow-streaks of rain. 

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. 

In front they bound the sheaves. Behind 
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil. 

And hoary to the wind. 

And one, a foreground black with stones and slags. 
Beyond, a line of heights, and higher 

All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags. 
And highest, snow and fire. 

And one, an English home — gray twilight pour'd 

On dewy pastures, dewy trees. 
Softer than sleep — all things, in order stored, 

A haunt of ancient Peace." 



Te;nnyson the; Dr^ame;r 235 

Each stanza is a picture, bound, not in book 
nor gold, but in a stanza. 

"Like flame from ashes." 

"Sighing weariedly, as one 
Who sits and gazes on a faded fire, 
When all the goodlier guests are past away." 

"As the crest of some slow-arching wave 
Heard in dead night along that table-shore 
Drops flat, and after the great waters break 
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves 
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud. 
From less and less to nothing." 

"Belted his body with her white embrace." 

"And out beyond into the dream to come." 

"Thus, as a hearth lit in a mountc.xn home. 
And glancing on the window, when the gloom 
Of twilight deepens round it, seems a flame 
That rages in the woodland far below." 

Looking at these landscapes, can words add 
weight to the claim for Alfred Tennyson as a 
painter ? 

And Tennyson Is as pure as the air of mid- 
ocean. His moral qualities are in no regard in- 
ferior to his artistic qualities, although from cen- 
turies of poets we might have been schooled to 
anticipate that so sensitive and poetic a nature 
had been sensual, concluding a lowered stand- 
ard of ethics, theoretical or practical, one or 



236 A He;ro and Some) Othejr Foi^k 

both, especially considering his earliest literary- 
admiration was that poetic Don Juan, Lord By- 
ron, whose poems were a transcript of his morals, 
where a luxuriant imagination and a poetic dic- 
tion we're combined in a high degree, and so the 
poet qualified to be a bane or blessing of a com- 
manding order, he choosing so to use his ex- 
traordinary gifts as to pollute the living springs 
from which a generation of men and women 
drank. What we do find Is, a Tennyson as re- 
moved .rom a Byron in moral mood and life' as 
southern cross from northern lights. The morals 
of both life and poems are as limpid as the 
waters of pellucid Tahoe ; and purest women may 
read from "Claribel" to "Crossing the Bar," and 
be only purer from the reading. Henry Van 
Dyke has written on "The Bible in Tennyson," 
an article, after his habit, discriminating and ap- 
preciative, in the course of which he shows how 
some of the delicious verse's of the laureate are 
literal extracts from the Book of God, so native 
is poetry to that sublime volume ; though I in- 
cline to believe the larger loan of the Bible to 
Tennyson is the purity of thought evidenced in 
the poet's writings, and more particularly in the 
poet's ^ life. Who has not been touched by the 
Bible who has lived in these later centuries? 
Modern life may no more' ,get away from the 
Bible than our planet may flee from its own 



J 



Tknnyson tsn Dre)ame;r 237 

atmosphere. We can never estimate the moral 
potency of such a poet, living and writing for 
sixty years, though we may fairly account this 
longevity of pure' living and pure thinking and 
pure writing among the primary blessings of our 
century. That two such pure men and poets as 
Tennyson and Browning were given a single race 
in a single century is abundant cause for giving 
hearty thanks to God. They have purified, not 
our day only, but remote days coming, ^ill days 
shall set to rise no more, and have givei>. the lie 
to the poor folly of supposing highest genius and 
purest morality to be incompatibles ; for in life 
and poem, and in the' poem of life, they have 
swept clouds from our sky, until all purity stands 
revealed, fair as the morning star smiling at 
Eastern lattices. In Tennyson is no slightest 
appeal to the sensual. He hates pruriency, mak- 
ing protest against it with a voice like the' 
clangor of angry bells. In "Locksley Hall Sixty 
Years After," he speaks wisely and justly, in 
sarcasm that bites as acids do : 

"Rip your brother's vices open, strip your own foul pas- 
sions bare: 

Down with Reticence, down with Reverence — forward, 
naked — let them stare. 

Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of 
your sewer; 

Send the drain into the fountain lest the stream should 
issue pure. 



238 A He;ro and Somk Other F01.K 

Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the trough of Zola- 
ism, 

Forward, forward, aye and backward, downward, too, 
in the abysm. 

Do your best to charm the worst, to lower the rising 
race of men." 

And this is Tennyson the aged, whose moral 
eyes were as the' physical eyes of Moses on Pis- 
gah, "undimmed." Bless him for his aged 
anger! Happily, to-day, reaHsm has lost its 
charm. We have had enough living in sewers, 
when the suburbs were near with their breezy 
heights and quiet homes. Stench needs no 
apostle. The age has outgrown these hectic 
folk, who, in the name of nature', lead us back 
to Pompeii. Gehenna needs not to be assisted. 
Jean Valjean, bent on an errand of mercy, fled 
to the sewers of Paris, his appeal to the'se foul 
subways being justified, since he sought them 
under stress for the preservation of a Hfe. Does 
this prove that men should take promenades in 
the sewers as if they were boulevards? An 
author is not called on to tell all he knows. Let 
writers of fiction assume that the public knows 
there are' foul things, and needs not to be re- 
minded of them, and let the romancist avoid them 
as he would a land of lepers. 

Those who companied with Tennyson through 
his beautiful career were helped into a growing 



Te;nnyson TH:e Dreamer 239 

love of purity. He had no panegyric for lust and 
shame and sensuality, but made us feel they were 
shameful, so that we blushed for those who had 
not the modesty to blush for themselves. We 
are ashamed for Guinevere and Lancelot, and are 
proud of Enid and Elaine and Sir Galahad and 
King Arthur; and in them, and in others, have 
been helped to see the heroic beauty of simple 
virtue. This is an incalculable gain for soul. 
When we have learned that profligates, whatever 
their spasms of flash}^ achievements, are poor 
company, and that the pure are evermore good 
company, and goodness Is a quest worthier than 
the quest for the golden grail, we have risen to no- 
bility of soul which can never becoime out of date. 

Noah was not more' clearly a preacher of 
righteousness in his day than Tennyson in his, 
of whom say, as highest encomium we know to 
pronounce, "He made goodness beautiful to our 
eyes and desirable to our hearts; and, beyond 
this, made it easier for us to be good," 

Over all this poet wrote, he might have looked 
straight in God's eye, and prayed, as King 

Arthur : 

"And that Avhich I have done 
May he within himself make pure!" 

And we chant, sending our muse after him, — 

"Nor was there moaning of the bar 
When he set out to sea." 



240 A He;ro and Some Othkr Foi,k 

To him saying, "We love him yet, and shall 
while life' endures," borrowing Whittier's God- 
speed to the dead Bayard Taylor : 

'Xet the home-voices greet him in the far, 
Strange land that holds him; let the messages 
Of love pursue him o'er the chartless seas 
And unmapped vastness of his unknown star! 
Love's language, heard above the loud discourse. 
Of perishable fame, in every sphere 
Itself interprets; and its utterance here, 
Somewhere in God's unfolding universe. 
Shall reach our traveler, softening the surprise 
Of his rapt gaze on unfamiliar skies!" 



VIII 

The American Historians 

THE average American traveler is better 
acquainted with foreign lands than with his 
own country. Nor is he unique in this regard, 
I have known persons who lived a lifetime 
within a dozen squares of Westminster Abbey, 
and were never inside of that historic cathedral, 
as I have known persons to live forty years not 
fifty miles distant from Niagara, and never to 
have heard the organ speech of that great cata- 
ract. This is a common flaw in intellect. We 
tend to underestimate the near, and exaggerate 
the remote. Another application of the same 
frailty is noticeable in literature. Homegrown 
literature is, with not a few, depreciated. Ac- 
cording to their logic, good things can not come 
out of Nazareth, and imported products are the 
only viands worth a Sybarite palate. In mediaeval 
days the form assumed was different, while the 
principle remained the same. Then the question 
of value turned upon whether a work was writ- 
ten in the learned language ; namely, in Latin. 
If written in the vernacular, the work was im- 
i6 241 



242 A Hbro and Some Other Foi,k: 

mediately set down as vulgar. One of Martin 
Luther's valuable services was that, when the 
reverse was prevalent, he honored the vernacu- 
lar of his country, and insisted that it be taught 
in the schools, a thing accounted an educational 
heresy in his time ; and in his translation of the 
Bible into German, he created German literature. 

Americans are a race of readers, and are the 
Rome to which all literature turns face and feet. 
Besides many books not' great, all great books 
are translated into English. Everybody's book 
comes to America. We are a cosmopolitan popu- 
lation In a literary way. If you were to look 
at the book-counters of each succeeding month, 
you would see how all the writing world has been 
writing for us. From such conditions of supply, 
our taste becomes cultivated. We feel ourselves 
connoisseurs. If we give a more ready reading 
to a foreign than to a domestic book, the reason 
is not of necessity that the home book is defi- 
cient in interest or literary finish, but may be 
attributed simply to an undesigned and perhaps 
unpercelved predisposition toward the imported 
and the remote. 

I confess to a love for what Is American. I 
love! Its Government; its prevalent and genuine 
democracy; its chance for the common man and 
woman to rise into success and fame and valuable 
service ; Its Inheritance, unblemished by primo- 



The; American Historians 243 

geniture or entail; its universality of education 
to a degree of intelligence ; its history and ten- 
dency; and I love its literature, though, as 
appears to me, our historians have done the 
highest grade of work of any of our litterateurs — 
in sa3dng which there is no disparagement of other 
literary workers, but simply a stated belief in the 
pre-eminent value of the historian in American 
letters. What I mean is this : During the fifty 
years last passed there were poets and novelists 
in England who, with all deference to our own 
writers, were equal or superior to the poets and 
novelists of America. America had no poets who 
stood the peer of Browning and Tennyson; and 
amxong novelists, our Hawthorne could not be 
said to surpass a Thackeray, Dickens, or Eliot. 
But say, proudly, beyond the sea were no his- 
torians the masters of Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, 
and Parkman. This article wishes to point out 
the quality and range of American historians, with 
an expressed hope of causing research in this 
ample and fertile field. 

Though first on the soil of the Western Hemi- 
sphere, the Spaniard has made no acknowledged 
and valuable contribution to American history. 
Nor, indeed, has any nation of this hemisphere, 
save our own. The French and Spanish Jesuit 
submitted religious monographs touching the 
early days of occupancy of New France and 



244 -^ Hbro and Some; Othkr Foi^e 

Mexico ; but these will readily be seen to be 
rather chronicles than histories. And the his- 
torian, native to the United States, is he in whose 
hands have been the historical studies of our 
Western World. La Salle, Hennepin, Marquette, 
and Las Casas have written faulty but valuable 
memoirs ; but they do not reach the dignity and 
value of histories, being what one might name' 
crude ore rather than refined gold. 

Another thing worthy a glad emphasis is, that 
America is her own historian. The New World 
has begotten the writers of its own story. How 
fully this is true will not be appreciated until a 
detailed and instantaneous survey is taken. 
Look down on this plain of history as one does 
on Tuscany from an Alp. Thus, and thus only, 
can we value our possession. In this estimate, 
mention is made of the greater historians, not 
because others are not worthy of notice, but be- 
cause the scope of this essay does not allow, inas- 
much as reference is here had to the specific 
gravity of the historian and the epoch of our his- 
tory he has exploited, 

Washington Irving, essayist, biographer, hu- 
morist, was, before all, a historian in temper, and 
was drawn as by some subtle and unseen attrac- 
tion to study that nation to which America 
owed its discovery. Irving is_ an evident Ameri- 
can. He loved the' land through whose palisades 



The) American Historians 245 

the stately Hudson flowed. What touched Amer- 
ica touched Irving, and who had loved or helped 
America had won Irving's heart as a trophy. 
And such evident patriotism is commendable in 
citizen and writer. We love not Caesar less, 
but Rome the more, when we believe in America 
before all nations of history. I love the patriot 
above the cosmopolitan, because in him is an 
honest look, a homeliness that touches the heart 
like the sight of a pasture-field, with its broken 
bars, where our childhood ran with happy feet. 
Carlyle was against things because they were 
English; so was Matthew Arnold. These men 
we're self-expatriated in spirit. I like not the 
attitude. Give us men who love native land be- 
yond all other lands, and who, removed there- 
from, turn homesick eyes toward its invisible 
boundaries. Irving, admirable in many ways, 
was in no way more' to be admired than in his 
predilection for his country as a theme for his 
historian's muse. To him pay tribute, because 
he is historian of the discovery of our brave 
Western Hemisphere. Irving has told the story 
of that great admiral of the' ocean, Christopher 
Columbus. This memoir may not be exact. 
Irving may have idealized this pathfinder of the 
ocean ; though if he has, he has observed the pro- 
prieties, literary and imaginative, as many suc- 
cessors have not. Some writers are seemingly 



246 A Hero and Som:^ Other Foi<k 

bent on making every great soul commonplace, 
thinking that if they fail to belittle a distinguished 
benefactor of the race, if they have not played the 
Vandal with a swagger and conceit like Jack 
Falstafif, they have ignominiously failed; when 
the plain truth is, that if they succeeded in tak- 
ing the glamour for those heroes of whom they 
write, they have hurt mankind so far, and have 
impoverished imagination and endeavor by their 
invidious task. We need not suppose Christopher 
Columbus and Washington saints, seeing there 
is no inclination to canonize them; but we need 
not hold their follies up to wake the guffaw of 
a crowd. Such laughter is dearly bought. One 
thing I hold so true no reasoning can damage 
it; namely, that a man like Columbus had nobler 
moods on which he voyaged as his caravel through 
the blue seas. Columbus was no swineherd, but 
a dreamer, whose dreams enlarged the world by 
half, and gave a new civilization room and tri- 
umph. He was of his age, and his morality was 
not unimpeachable ; but in him were still great 
moralities and humanities. He had mountain- 
tops in his spirits, and on these peaks he stood. 
What puerile work it is to attempt robbing Co- 
lumbus of his discoverer's glory by attempting 
to show how vikings discovered this continent! 
Such historians might fight a less bloody battle 
still by showing that the aborigines discovered 



The AM:eRiCAN Historians 247 

this continent before the Norsemen did! What 
boots such folly? What gold of benefit comes 
of such quests? Certain we are that when Co- 
lumbus set sail for a New World, no one believed 
the earth was round as he did, and no one knew 
the Norsemen had piloted across seas and found 
land; and Europe was ignorant of any shore 
westward, and Columbus, in his ignorance, risked 
all and vanquished all. 

"Dragging up drowned honor by the locks," 

as says our Shakespeare. Columbus is America's 
benefactor. He showed the Puritans a New 
World, toward whose shores to sail, and behind 
whose harbor-bar to cast anchor. Nothing can 
invalidate these claims. Honor him who honors 
us in giving us a rendezvous for liberty and 
civilization. This mood of history Washington 
Irving caught, and because he did, I honor him. 
He was sagacious. He did not traduce a hero, 
but enthroned him. In short, Irving behaved 
toward Christopher Columbus as a historian and 
a gentleman, and set Americans a pattern in history- 
writing in that they should be the' historiograph- 
ers of their own world. This Nestor's lessons 
were heard and heeded. If you care to read 
Irving's various historical writings, the logic of 
these writings will appear. America was his home 
and love. He thought to write the story of how 



248 A Hero and Som:^ Other Foi,k 

a brave man gave a world this huge room 
it knew not of. Loyalty made him historian. 
His researches gave him familiarity with Spanish 
archives. The movement of the era touched him; 
for Irving was susceptible to the finer moods of 
literature, as any who reads the "Sketch-book" 
knows; and once having set foot on Spanish his- 
torical ter7'a Urma, he began a journey as a traveler 
might. America led Irving to Columbus, Co- 
lumbus led him to Spain, Spain led him to 
Mohammedism, and Mohammedism led him to 
Mohammed. How natural his literary travels ! 
Consider the consecutiveness of his historical at- 
tempts : "Life of Columbus," "Spanish Voyages," 
"Conquest of Grenada," "Conquest of Spain," 
"Moorish Chronicles," and "Life of Mohammed." 
The influence of this historical research, too, you 
shall find in reading his romances : "Wolfert's 
Roost," "Legends of the Conquest of Spain," 
"Bracebridge Hall," and "Alhambra." 

Patriotism taught Irving's Clio to find her 
voice. Nor must we forget, in any estimate of 
Irving's service, his biography of Washington. 
This is his tribute to the battle-days of his beloved 
America. 

In strict affinity with Irving in the time of his 
history is Prescott. This man is a distinguished 
historian. To history he devoted his life, and to 
such effect that he is to be ranked among the 



Thk American Historians 249 

masters of history among the ages. America at- 
tracted him as it had attracted Irving. The era 
of the discovery enticed him as the voyage had 
enticed Columbus. "Ferdinand and Isabella" are 
the dominant voices on his stage. Irving made 
them subordinate, and made Columbus the chief 
player, which mode Prescott reverses. The 
union of Castile and Aragon, and the subsequent 
■wars against the Moriscoes, which virtually put 
the knife in their heart and concluded that tri- 
umph which had been begun by Charles Martel 
at Tours, is an attractive portion of history. In 
Prescott, as in Motley, is a wealth of research 
which fairly bewilders. Nothing is extempora- 
neous. Archives are ransacked. Moldy corre- 
spondence is made to tell its belated story. Cer- 
tainly Prescott is abundant in information. I do 
not recall, save in Gibbon's, a series of histories 
where so much new knowledge is retailed as in 
Prescott. In seeming looseness of phrase, I have 
used the term "new knowledge," but these 
words are happily descriptive of "Conquest of 
Mexico" and "Conquest of Peru," because the 
fields were practically untrodden to the ordinary 
reader. Everything is new, like a college to the 
freshman. We see a New World in more senses 
than one. The freshness of the facts is exhilarat- 
ing. We march with Cortes ; we conquer with 
Pizarro; we inspect Montezuma's palace; we be- 



250 A Hkro and Some Other Foi^k:. 

come' interested in the industrial system of the In- 
cas, a system which should have given Henry 
George and Edward Bellamy a delight without 
alloy; we perceive the incredible valor and perse- 
verance and endurance of Cortes ; we front 
"new faces, other minds ;" we discover the 
Amazon through perils and hardships so multi- 
tudinous and so severe as to tempt us to think these 
narrations a myth; we see rapacity insatiable' as 
death, a bloody idol-worship pitiless and terrible; 
we read Prescott's history with growing avidity 
and increasing information ; read Prescott, and 
become wiser concerning the aborigines of the' 
Americas and the possibilities of human forti- 
tude and prowess. A study of the Spanish era 
of discovery and conquest naturally led to a study 
of Charles V, grandson of Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, and Prescott has accordingly brought up 
to date "Robertson's Life of Charles V," append- 
ing a biography of Charles V subsequent to his 
abdication ; and as a certificate of indefatigable in- 
dustry in historical research is an incomplete but 
exhaustive memoir, entitled, "The Life of 
Philip IL" This work is written with such fair- 
ness of spirit and such wealth of information and 
investigation, such vivid presentation of a reign 
v/hich had more of the movement of the universal 
dominion than any since the Roman days, and 
thus written so as to make us rebellious in spirit 



The) Ameirican Historians 251 

In finding the work incomplete. Death came too 
soon to give our indefatigable author time to com- 
plete his voluminous history. Read Prescott as 
a matter of American pride, and because' he has 
dealt more capably with the era with which he 
treats than any other historian. 

The United States has supplied her own his- 
torians, not needing to go abroad for either his- 
tory or historian. George Bancroft, with a private 
library larger by almost half than the ten thou- 
sand-volume library Edward Gibbon used in writ- 
ing "The Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Kmpire ;" George Bancroft, whose literary life 
was dedicated to one task, and that the writing 
the life of his coimtry prior to the Constitution; 
George Bancroft, publicist as well as student of 
history, and who in such relation represented his 
Government with distinction at the courts of 
Germany and England, — George Bancroft has 
written a history of the United States which will 
no more become archaic than Macaulay or Grote. 
While one' may now and then hear from the lips 
of the so-called "younger school of American 
historians" a criticism of George Bancroft, their 
carping is ungracious and gratuitous. Theirs has 
not been the art to equal him, nor will be. A 
literary life devoted to the mastery of one era 
of a nation's ihistory is a worthy sight, good 
for the eyes, and arguing sanity of method and 



252 A HijRo AND Some Other FoIvK 

profundity of investigation. Whoever has read 
Bancroft can testify to his readableness, to his 
comprehensive knowledge, to his philosophical 
grasp, to his ability to make dead deeds vividly 
visible, and to his gift of interesting the reader 
in events and their philosophy. He has written 
a great history of the United States before the 
Constitution, so that no author has felt called on 
or equipped to reduplicate his task in the same 
detail and manner. 

Where George Bancroft left ofif, Schouler has 
begun. More dramatic than Bancroft, and in 
consequence more compelling in interest, the his- 
tory marches at a double-quick, like a charging 
regiment. His pictures of John Quincy Adams, 
Calhoun, Clay, Webster, Sumner, Douglas, Lin- 
coln, and a host beside', vitalize those men. We 
live with that giant brood. I have found Schouler 
invigoratingly helpful. He affords knowledge and 
inspiration ; a man is behind his pages ; we feel 
him and acknowledge him. 

One change has come over the spirit of his- 
tory to which all must bear joyful witness, and 
that is the passing of the king and the advent 
of the people. The world has grown more demo- 
cratic than it knows. The people engage atten- 
tion now. We do not know so much of Queen 
Victoria; but of the conquering, splendid race 
whose hereditary sovereign she is, we know much, 



The Ame;rican Historians 253 

very much. The case used to be wholly other- 
wise, the sovereign monopolizing attention ; but 
that day is passed. So let it be. This change 
is one needed, and waited for long, and longed for 
eagerly, John Richard Green saw the demoneti- 
zation of kings and a remonetization of the people, 
and so wrote a revolutionary history, calling it 
"A History of the English People," in which he 
subordinated the intrigues of courts and the selfish 
wars of potentates to the quiet growth of national 
spirit and the characteristics of domestic life, and 
the development and solidification of social in- 
stincts into social customs, and the framing of 
a literature, the reformation of religion, and the 
direction of the thought of the many. These con- 
stituted, as he believed, and as we believe, the 
genuine biography of a people ; and McMaster has 
done' for the United States what Green has done 
for England. His "History of the People of the 
United States" is so packed with knowledge ; so 
accurate in laying hold of those things which we 
did not know, but wanted to know; so free in 
giving us the inside life of our country, as to 
make' us wonder what we did before our historian 
of the people came to lend us knowledge. My 
conviction is, that a careful reading of McMaster 
will suffice to cure most of our dyspeptic feelings 
about national discontent in our time, and dispel 
the' fabulous notion of an older time in America, 



254 -^ H^RO AND SoM]^ Othejr Foi,k 

when everybody was happy and everybody was 
contented. No such day ever existed. The king- 
dom of contentment is within us, like the king- 
dom of God. McMaster tells us the unvarnished 
tale of inflation and political and financial asinin- 
ity in the former days, so that when he is done 
We are less liable to that frailty of the ignorant 
soul; namely, the moaning, "The former days 
we're better than these." 

Thus far, those authors have been named who 
have chronicled the discovery of America, the 
conquering of the Southern Hemisphere or the' 
Eastern territory of that era known as the United 
States. This was done to keep a natural move- 
ment and logical progress. At this point, how- 
ever, must be mentioned those voluminous his- 
tories of the States and Territories of the Pacific 
Coast, written by H. H. Bancroft. They are 
treasure-houses of material for the future histo- 
rian. Hubert Bancroft has become the historian 
of the Spanish dominion in the United States, and 
deserves favorable thought for his wealth of re- 
search into archives which might have been lost, 
or at least less ample with the advance of time. 
Topography, geography, archseology, State papers, 
' — all have contributed their quota to him, and 
he has, after the generous manner of the scholar, 
contributed to us. 

Francis Parkman is a distinguished master in 



Thk American Historians 255 

the art of history. His theme is the '"American 
Indian" and the "French Occupancy of America," 
and he has told a thrilHng story. He knows the 
Indian as no one of our historians has known 
him, and has told of his noble traits, and his 
ruthless forays, and his sanguine cruelty. His 
utter lack of thrift ; his feast-and-famine life ; his 
stealth, stoHdity, duplicity, and ferocity, — all are 
rehearsed. To read his record of the Indian is 
to have much of the glamour thrown around him 
by James Fenimore Cooper stripped from him 
incontinently and forever. The Indian was self- 
exterminative. He was the assassin of his race, 
and civilization was impossible so long as the 
American Indian was dominant; so that those 
who shed tears over the white man's conquest of 
the Indian may not well have weighed their cause. 
The Indian was not the quiet, inoffensive inno- 
cent presented in Cuba at its discovery. There 
were Indians and Indians. Some of them were 
friendly, peaceful, and kindly; but that this was 
the character of the American Indian as a whole 
is totally incorrect. Parkman shows that the 
Indian was, throughout North America, in his 
native strength furious in his ferocity, relentless 
as death, cruel beyond imagination, and occupied 
a territory he neither cultivated nor attempted to. 
The Indians were military vagabonds, whose con- 
tinued control had left America an unpeopled 



256 A Hero and Some) Otheje. Foi<k 

wilderness to this day. Huntsmen and warriors 
they were; citizens and cultivators and civilizers 
they were not, and never would have been. 
Parkman tells the truth as history found them, and 
those truths are well worth our reading, because 
in their perusal we pass from sentimentality to 
reason, and see how this America of our day, 
rich, cultivated, civilized, and possessed of the 
largest amount of personal liberty ever vouch- 
safed to a citizen, is a noble exchange for the' 
thoughtlessness, improvidence, and barbarity 
which were original holders of this realm. Speak- 
ing for myself, no author ever helped me to 
knowledge of the character of the aborigines of 
North America as Francis Parkman has done. 
I see that wild past, and feel it. And he has 
written the thrilling story of the French attempt 
to build an empire; and the attempt was coura- 
geous to the verge of wonder. There was in the 
Frenchman a careless ease and courage and 
sprightliness of temper, which lifted him above 
danger, as a boat is Hfted on a billow's shoulders. 
Those perils were his drink ; with a laugh and a 
jest he met his appointment with death as he 
would have met tryst with a woman. In "The 
Romance of American Geography," I have de- 
scribed the genius of the French voyager, for 
which I have an unbounded admiration, and in 
which I take' an intemperate" delight. He is the 



The American Historians 257 

discoverer at his best, but the colonizer at his 
worst. The Jesuits had a brave chapter in the 
French occupancy. Their labors and sufterings 
and voyagings, their fealty to what they thought 
to be the cause of God, makes us proud of 
them, as if they were our own fellow-citizens. 
The settlement of Montreal and Quebec and con- 
tiguous territory, the religious fervor that mixed 
with the military spirit as waters of two streams 
mingle in a mountain-meadow, — read Parkman, 
and discover the dramatic instincts of these epi- 
sodes which can be rehearsed no more upon our 
continent. Their day is past; but it was a great 
and stirring day. Gilbert Parker's "The Seats of 
the Mighty" is a chapter torn from Parkman's 
^'French Regime in Canada." All his facts and the 
romance are accurate, and are taken from Park- 
man's narrative, which misses nothing, but tells 
all. Parker's "Pierre and ihis People," and "An 
Adventure of the North" are tales of adven- 
ture, dewy with the' freshness of a frontier world, 
and are in brief a section of the old French voy- 
agers' days. Parkman's "Wolfe and Montcalm" 
is a picture, painted in smoke and blood, where 
heroism of Englishmen and Frenchmen mix 
themselves in an inextricable confusion. Pray you 
read Parkman, and be transported to a world 
where great deeds were done by men whose lives 
were as contradictory as an April day; but "their 
17 



258 A H:eRO AND Some Other Foi<k 

works do follow them" for all that, and do glorify 
them. Be glad for Francis Parkman, historian. 

Many historians there are. John Fiske has 
written chapters on the discovery and coloniza- 
tion days ; Rhodes has written on our Constitu- 
tional history; Winsor has written on our an- 
tiquities; Baird has written an exhaustive and 
competent history of the Huguenots, a series 
one will do more than well to read. Many schol- 
ars have written comparatively brief memoirs of 
the United States. Localities and States and 
single villages have had their historians ; but the 
commanding figures whose faces fill the canvas, 
so to say, — of them this appreciation is written, 
to point youth to an Oregon of delight, where 
their leisure may stray with abundant profit and 
increasing pleasure, and, as I hope, with growing 
pride in American literature, so that they may 
make mental boast of America's sons, who have 
been stanch to enjoy and study the history of 
their own native land. 

My final word is of that brilliant, irascible, and 
impressible American, John Lothrop Motley, his- 
torian of the Dutch Republic ; and fitting it is that 
a native of the first great stable Republic was 
drawn to study the European Republic which 
rose at the touch of William the Silent's genius, 
and sank back into lethargy of kingship when the 
blood of the tragic and heroic inauguration was 



The American Historians 259 

all spilt. The contact of the United Netherlands 
with American history and future is known to all. 
From the Netherlands the Puritans set sail to 
found what proved to be a colony and Republic. 
The extent to which the Netherlands exercised 
an influence in shaping the future of the American 
Commonwealth has not been determined, and can 
not be, though Douglas Campbell has maintained 
that to the Dutch, and not to the English Puritan, 
nor yet to the Magna Charta, does the American 
Republic owe its chief debt. The theme is pro- 
ductive and stimulative and worthy, though the 
facts are indeterminate. America is attached to 
the Dutch Republic as a bold attempt whose fail- 
ure was nobler than many successes. The Puritan 
exodus from Holland, when Pastor John Robin- 
son prayed, preached, and prophesied, is one of 
the most thrilling events recorded of the seven- 
teenth century — a century crowded with doings 
that thrill the flesh like a bugle-call. 

Motley's histories are "The Rise of the Dutch 
Republic," "The United Netherlands," and "John 
of Barneveld," a series which, for brilliancy of 
characterization of men and times and events, and 
interest stimulated and held, may rank, without 
hyperbole, with the writings of Lord Macaulay. 
Both are always special pleaders, as I am of opin- 
ion history ought probably to be, seeing that it 
is human nature, and will, in all but solitary in- 



26o A He;ro and Som:^ Othejr Foi,k 

stances, be the case whether or no ; both are fas- 
cinating as a romancist ; both are colorists, gor- 
geous as Rembrandt ; both glorify and .make you 
admire and love their heroes, whether you are 
so minded or not; both have made the epoch of 
which they wrote vivid as the landscape upon 
which the sunset pours its crimson dyes. Motley's 
hero was William the Silent, Prince' of Orange; 
and Macaulay's hero was William III, King of 
England, Prince of Orange. Motley will bear be- 
ing ranked as a great historian. He hates Philip 
II, as I suppose good folks ought who despise 
egotism, intolerance, vindictiveness, and horrible 
cruelty. He lauds William the Silent as soldier 
and statesman. Prince Maurice as a soldier, and 
John of Barneveld as statesman. Motley marches 
across old battle-fields like' a soldier clad in steel. 
He gives portraits of Queen Elizabeth, of Leices- 
ter, of Granvelle, of Prince Maurice, of John of 
Barneveld, of Henry of Navarre, of Philip II, of 
Count Egmont, of Charles V, of Don John of 
Austria, of Hugo Grotius, and of William the 
Silent, which are as noble as the portraits painted 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds. I confess myself a heavy 
debtor to Motley. He has taught me' so much ; 
has familiarized me with the great world-figure, 
William the Silent, so that I feel at home with 
him and his struggle, and participate with him in 
them. He has drawn so clearly the figures of 



Th:^ American Historians 261 

Romanist, Arminian, and Calvinist, as to make 
them fairly glow upon his pages. Not as minister 
to St. James, under President Grant, was Motley 
at his best; but rifling the archives of Holland 
and Spain with an industry which knew no 
bounds, and rehearsing the dry-as-dust discover- 
ies in histories that glow like a furnace. Here is 
the field in which he is all but unconquerable. 
Long live the American historians! 



IX 

King Arthur 

PERHAPS no reader of the' world's literature 
would deny that letters and life had been in- 
definitely enriched by Alfred Tennyson. 

How ideas affect life when once they have be- 
come participants therein is the bar at which all 
ideas must stand for judgment. Carbonic-acid gas 
enters the lungs, fills them, and blows out the 
lamp of life. Common air enters the' lungs, crim- 
sons the blood, exhilarates the spirit, gives elas- 
ticity to step and thought and pulse; is health, 
and pours oil into the lamp of life whereby the' 
flame burns higher, like watch-fires on evening 
hills. One air brought death; one air brought 
more abundant life. What do ideas effect, and 
how do they affect him who entertains them is 
the final question and the final test. Now, our 
earth is always trying to grow men. Not har- 
vests nor flowers nor forests, but man, is what 
the' earth is proudest of. On transparent June 
days, standing upon the cliffs of the Isle of Man, 
I have seen the golden wheatfields on the hills 
of Wales ; but heaven, looking earth's way, is ob- 
262 



King Arthur 263 

livlous to our tossing plumes of corn or tawny 
billows of the fields of wheat. Heaven's con- 
cern is in our crop of manhood; and ships that 
ply between the shores of earth and shores of 
heaven are never laden with gold or silver ingots, 
as Spanish galleons were, nor with glancing silks 
nor burning gems, but are forever freighted with 
elect spirits. Men and women are the commodity 
earth grows that heaven wants. 

What helps the' growth of man is good; what 
hurts the growth of man is bad. When one has 
become a shadow, lost to human eyes, test him 
with this acid. Did he do good? If he did evil, 
let his name perish; if he did good, let his name 
blaze in the' galaxy among the inextinguishable 
stars. If he has made the growth of manhood 
easier and its method more apparent; if he has 
opened eyes to see the best, and spurred men to 
attempt the best they saw; If he has enamored 
them of virtue as aforetime' they were enamored 
of vice, — trust me, that man was good. He will 
endure, and be passed from age to age, like rare 
traditions through centuries, till time shall die. 
Submit Alfred Tennyson to this test. Is virtue 
more apparent, more lovely, and of more luxu- 
riant growth, like tropic forests, because of him? 
But one answer is possible, and that answer is, 
"King Arthur." To our moral riches, Victor 
Hugo added "J^^" Valjean;" Dickens, "Sidney 



264 A He;ro and Somk Othkr FoIvK 

Carton ;" Thackeray, "Colonel Newcome ;" Brown- 
ing, "Caponsacchi ;" Tennyson, "King Arthur," 
who stands and will stand as Tennyson's vision 
of manhood at its prime. 

The theme of this paper, then, is "King 
Arthur," being a philosophy of manhood as out- 
lined by Alfred Tennyson; and the purpose of 
this essay is to bring into vital relation to King 
Arthur the totality of argument for manhood 
which Tennyson has constructed in his cycle of 
poems, thus taking into our field of vision, not 
simply "The Idyls of the King," adequate as they 
may be, but, in addition, "Enoch Arden," "Ulys- 
ses," "The' Vision of Sin," "The Palace of Art," 
"Maud," "Columbus," "Locksley Hall," "The 
Lotos-Eaters," and "In Memoriam," and all poems 
which, by negation or affirmation, may suggest 
or enforce a thought regarding the furnishing of 
the soul. 

In those idyls clustering about King Arthur, 
Tennyson has patently purposed painting the 
figure of a perfect man. How well he has exe- 
cuted his design depends on himself much, on 
the beholder much. Onlookers differ in opinion. 
Painters have their clientage. Poets are not 
omniscient ; neither are we, a thing we are prone 
to forget. For myself, I confess not to see with 
those who deride the king, nor yet with those 
who think him statuesque, as if shaped, not out 



King Arthur 265 

of flesh, but out of marble. He is not incredible, 
nor is he a shadow, stalking gaunt and battle-clad 
across the crags that fringe the' Cornish sea. Not 
a few among us approximate perfection in char- 
acter as blameless as Arthur's. I myself profess 
to have seen a King Arthur, and to have held 
high converse with him through many years. 
Whiteness of hfe is not an episode foreign to 
biography. There are man}^ Hves running white 
toward heaven as I have seen a path across the' 
moonlit sea. Not to be credulous is well; not to 
be incredulous is better, when heavenly visions 
and heavenly incarnations are' the theme. This is 
affirmed, that King Arthur is not more unreal than 
others Tennyson dehneates. His art lacks the 
power to flood his people's veins with blood to 
plethora, with such bounding vitality as marks 
Shakespeare's creations. They lack, sometimes, 
color on the cheek and lip and sunlight in the 
eyes. His characters are as if seen in mist. Our 
failing is, we give credence to fleshly instinct and 
lust and failure in ideal more readily than to 
wise manliness and stalwart and heroic worth. 
But Enoch Arden is no dream. Arthur is no 
myth. I know a man whose heart is as pure, 
whose conduct as above' reproach, and whose 
words are as big with charity, and thoughts as 
foreign to hypocrisy, as Arthur's were ; for Arthur 
is not dead. They did not dream who said, 



266 A Hbro and Som:^ Other Foi^k 

"Arthur returns." He hides his name, lest he be- 
come spectacular, a raree-show, for mobs to fol- 
low and shout hoarse about; but he is here. I 
met him yesterday; and to-morrow I shall walk 
with him by the river, whe're the stream makes 
music, and the trees sing in minors, and the 
shadows darken on the grass. 

What, then, is this Arthur's character ? Look- 
ing at him as he sits astride his steed, yonder 
at Camelot, with his visor up, he is see'n manhood 
at its prime. A ruddy face, with beard of gold, 
holding the sun as harvests do. Tourneys done, 
the king is turned battleward, where he is to die ; 
and a man's picture comes to have special value 
at his death. When the wounded king is borne 
by Bedivere across the echoing crags toward the 
black funeral barge, we see him again, full in the 
face, and remember him always. 

King Arthur was a self-made man. His birth 
was held to be uncertain. "Is he Uther's son?" 
was on many a lip. So men yet sometimes hold 
to some poor question of ancestry when worth, 
evident as light, fronts them. Some there are 
who live in so narrow a mood as to ask always 
"Where?" and never "What?" when the latter is 
God's unvarying method of estimation. This 
quest for ancestry for Arthur is of service to us 
as showing he had not empire ready to his hand. 
His kingdom did not make him ; he made his 



King Arthur 267 

kingdom; or, to give the entire history, lie made 
himself and his kingdom. And this is oft-repeated 
history. When a man makes a kingdom, he first 
made himself. He does two things. Might goes 
not single, loves not solitude, but makes itself 
company. Milton made himself before he made 
the Bible epic of the world. He wrought himself 
and his complex history into his Iliad of heavenly 
battle. Souls have, in a true sense, a beaten path 
to tread. There is a highway worn to ruts and 
dust by travel of the great men's feet. And Arthur 
had much company, if he knew it not. Such men 
seem alone, though if they saw all their com- 
panionships they would know they walked on in 
a goodly company and great. Greatness has 
many fellowships, as stars have ; and stars have 
fellowship of mountains and woods, and kindred 
stars, and waters where star-shadows lie, and 
oceans where galaxies tumble like defeated angels. 
All greatness is self-made. Names are bequeathed 
us, so much is borrowed. Character and value 
are self-made. Gold has intrinsic worth. Man 
has not, but makes his worth by the day's labor 
of his hands. 

This provision is God's excellent antidote to 
dissatisfaction with one's estate. If worth could 
be handed down, like name or fortune, one might 
as well be a pasture-field, to pass from hand to 
hand as chattel, instead of man. Far otherwise 



268 A Hero and Some Othkr Foi.k 

God's plan. Each spirit works out, and must 
work out, his own destiny. Destinies are not 
ready-made but hand-made. King Arthur's fame 
is not dependent on his ancestry, but on himself. 
Ancestry we can not control ; self we can. Tenny- 
son, though part of a hereditary system, sees with 
perfect clearness how ancestry accounts for no 
man, and how every man must make his own 
room in the world; how nobility depends, not on 
a family's past, but on the individual's present; 
how wealth and service are the credentials of char- 
acter society will accept, and the only credentials. 
This view is scarcely English, but is fully Amer- 
ican. And Tennyson was not sympathetic with 
America. Democracies possessed not the flavor 
of the' fruit he loved. When, however, the biog- 
raphy of greatness is to be written, who writes 
the story, if he write it truly, must tell a story 
of democracy. Tennyson is unconscious demo- 
crat when he writes Arthur's biography, because 
as poet he saw. His intuitions led him. He 
spoke, not as a lover of a certain social and polit- 
ical system, but as a discerner of spirits. The 
poet is not his best as a planned philosophizer ; 
for in that role he becomes self-conscious; but 
is at his best when the wheel of his burning spirit, 
revolving as the planets do, throws off sparks 
or streams of fire. To the accuracy of this ob- 
servation witness both Browning and Tennyson. 



King Arthur " 269 

When they were "possessed," as the Delphic 
oracle would say, they marched toward truth like 
an invincible troop. Truth seemed the missing 
half of their own sphere, toward which, by a subtle 
and lordly gravitation, they swung. When Tenny- 
son's instincts speak, he is democrat; when his 
reason and his prejudice (for he was surcharged 
with both) speak, he is hot aristocrat. When 
he is biographer for royal Arthur, his instinct 
speaks, and his conviction holds that character 
and deeds do and shall count for more than blood ; 
and this is no isolated idea advanced touching 
Arthur, but is prevalent throughout his verse. In 
"Lady Clara Vere de Vere," his heart speaks, full 
of eagerness, saying: 

"Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 
'T is only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
And simple faith than Norman blood." 

Nor is the Laureate's subsequent acceptance 
of the peerage a retraction of these earlier senti- 
ments ; for he did but accept the ribbon of an 
order which was part of the political system of 
his native land. Himself was self-made'. Who 
were the Tennysons? Who are the Tennysons? 
He made a house. And in the list of lords, does 
any one think there is a name whose device one 
would rather wear than that of Lord Tennyson? 



270 A He;ro and Some Othejr Folk 

Holland has this bit of verse, whose application 
is apparent : 

"Heaven is not reached at a single bound; 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 
And mount to its summit round by round." 

Genius does the same. The stairs each gen- 
eration climbed are rotten at its death, so that 
no foot's weight can be borne upon them after- 
ward. Man builds his own stairway greatness- 
ward. In the Idyl of the King, entitled "Gareth 
and Lynette," is application of this thought of 
manhood above title or name or blood. Worth, 
the main thing, is the theme of the idyl. 

Hear Gareth call, like voice of trumpets, 

"Let be my name ; until I make my name 

My deeds will speak." 

He seemed, and was not, a kitchen knave. He 
seemed not, and he was, a knight of valor and of 
purity and might, of purpose and of succor. Silly 
Lynette might rain her superficial insults on him 
like a winter's sleet — this hindered not his service. 
He knew to wait, and dare, and do. His fame was 
in him. A great life bears not its honors on its 
back, as mountains do their pines, but in his 
heart, as women do their Ipve. In Tennyson's 
concept of manhood, worth counts, not rank. To 



King Arthur 271 

this argument, words from "In Memoriam" are 
a contribution : 

"As some divinely-gifted man, 

Whose life in low estate began 
And on a simple village green; 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 

And grapples with his evil star; 

Who makes by force his merit known. 
And lives to clutch the golden keys. 
To mold a mighty State's decrees, 

And shape the whisper of the throne; 

And moving on from high to higher. 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope, 

The center of a world's desire." 

Such words seem as if fallen from the lips of 
Lincoln in a dream. "Aylmer's Field" is a pro- 
test, written in grief and tears and blood against 
the iniquity of ancestry as divorced from the pure 
course of nobler love. God made of one blood 
all kindreds of the earth, and means to mix this 
blood till time shall die. Hearts give scant heed 
to heraldry. Life is wider than a baron's field. 
Arthur Hallam, whose epitaph is the sweetest ever 
written, and bears title of "In Memoriam," — 
Arthur Hallam, so greatly loved and missed, was 
never nobleman in genealogy, but was full prince 



272 A Hero and Some Other F01.K 

in youth and ideality and purity and genius and 
j i promise, worth more than all the ancestries of 

buried kings. More : Tennyson was as much self- 
made as King Arthur. He made a house which 
I I ! ! rose to the sound of poet's lute, rehearsing, in 

our days, the story of Orpheus in the remote 
j yesterdays. So myths come to be history. And 

who would not rather be author of "The Lotos- 
Eaters," and "Qinone," and "Ulysses," and 
"Enoch Arden," and "In Memoriam" than to have 
been possessed, with Sir Aylmer Aylmer, of 

"Spacious hall. 
Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree 
Sprung from the midriff of a prostrate king?" 

King Arthur's knights were novi viri. Whence 
came Lancelot and Geraint and Sir Percivale? 
And how came they, save' as 

"Rising on their dead selves 
To higher things?" 

Arthur, at whose back march all the legions 
of Tennyson's poetry celebrative of manhood, — 
Arthur asserts the nobleness of manhood, irre- 
spective of the accidents of wealth or birth. Many 
scenes in Tennyson are taken from the cottage. 
"The May Queen," "The Gardener's Daughter," 
"The Grandmother," "Rizpah," and, above all, 
"Enoch Arden," are poems showing how poetry 



King Arthur 273 

dwells in the hearts of common folks. The verse 
of books they may not know; the verse of senti- 
ment they are at home with. Birth is not a term 
in the proportion of worth; and I hold Arthur 
one of the strongest voices of our century assert- 
ive of the sufficiency of manhood. Self-made and 
greatly made was this king at Camelot. 

King Arthur was optimist. He expected good 
in men, was not suspicious. "Interpreting others 
by his own pure heart," you interject, "He was 
duped." The' harlot Vivien called him fool, and 
despised him ; but she was fallen, shameful, treach- 
erous, and, what was worse, so fallen as not to 
see the beauty in untarnished manhood, which is 
the last sign of turpitude. Many bad men have 
still left an honest admiration for a goodness 
themselves are alien to. Vivien was so lost as 
that goodness, manhood, knightliness, sweet and 
tall as mountain pines, made no appeal to her. 
iPilth is dearer to some than mountain air. She 
was such. A fallen woman, given over to her 
fall, is horrible in depravity. Merhn saw that her 
estimate of Arthur was the measure of herself. 
Beatrix Esmond did not appreciate Henry Es- 
mond ; for the Pretender was her measure of soul. 
Though to her praise be it said that, in her old 
age, Esmond dead, she thought of him as women 
think of Christ. Arthur believed in men, sup- 
posing them to be transcripts of himself; and in 
18 



274 -^ Hero and Somk Other Foi,k 

so doing in details, he erred. His philosophy of 
goodness was erroneous ; for he held to the theory 
of goodness by environment, fencing knights and 
ladies about with his own fine honor and chastity, 
supposing pure environment would make them 
pure, forgetting how God's kingdom is always 
within. Environment is not gifted to make men 
good. Arthur believed men pure, nor was he 
wholly wrong. The men about him gave the lie 
to his expectation; but these moral ragamufhns 
did not invalidate the king's faith. The road taken 
was not the world. Lancelot and Guinevere and 
Gawain and Modred, false? False! Pelleas, see- 
ing Ettarre lustful and untrue, digging rowels into 
his steed and crying, "False ! false !" was not wise 
as Arthur. The' optimist is right. Some were 
false, 't is true ; but others were true as crystal 
streams, that all night long give back the heavens 
star for star. There were and are true men and 
women. Our neighborhood, if so be it is foul, 
is not the earth. Enid, and Elaine, and Sir Gala- 
had, and Sir Percivale, and Gareth, and others 
not designated, were pure. Snows on city streets 
are stained with soot and earth; snows on the 
mountains arc as white as woven of the beams 
of noon. King Arthur, expecting the better of 
the world, in so doing followed the example of 
his Savior, Christ, who was most surely optimist. 
King Arthur, in his midnight hour, when knight 



King Arthur 275 

and wife and Lancelot deserted him, when his 
"vast pity almost made him die," still kept the 
lamp of hope aflame and sheltered from the wind, 
lest it flame, flare, and die. His fool still loved 
him and clasped his feet; and bold Sir Bedivere 
staid with him through the thunder shock of that 
last battle in the west. Not all were false. Some 
friends abide. Though his application was not al- 
ways wise, his attitude was justified. Having done 
his part, he had not been betrayed; for he was 
still victor. Lancelot and Guinevere were de- 
feated, ruined, as were Gawain and Ettarre, who, 
as they wake', find across their naked throats the 
bare sword of Pelleas ; then Ettarre knew what 
knight was knightly. Goodness wins in the long 
battle, though supposed defeated in the petty 
frays. Tennyson makes his ideal man an optimist. 
"Maud" is a study in pessimism. The lover's blood 
is tainted with insanity. He raves, is suspicious, 
is at war with all things and all men ; rails at 
the social system, not from any broad sympathy 
with better things, but from a strident selfishness, 
rasping and self-proclamatory, lacking elevation, 
save as his love puts wings beneath him for a 
moment and Hfts him, as eagles billow up their 
young; is weak, and tries to cover weakness up 
by ranting. We pity, then despise him, then pity 
him once more, and in sheer charity think him 
raving mad. Stand Maud's lover alongside King 



276 A Hkro and Some Otheir Foi,k 

Arthur, and how splendid does King Arthur look ! 
The lover was pessimist and wrong; Arthur was 
optimist and, in his temper, right. Though hacked 
at by the careless or vicious swords of cumulating 
hatreds, underestimations, selfishness, and lewd- 
ness of lesser and cruder souls, knowing, as he 
did, how God is on goodness' side, knew, there- 
fore, who is on God's side keeps hope in good, 
believing better things. Those who, thinking 
themselves shrewd, and are perennially suspicious, 
do really lack in shrewdness, lacking depth. The 
far view is the serene view. Pelleas, too, is a 
study in lost faith. He was near-sighted in his 
moral life, and so, in losing faith in Ettarre, lost 
faith in womanhood, a conclusion not justified 
from the premises ; and you hear him in the wild 
night, crying as beasts of the desert cry, and what 
he hisses as you pass is, "I have no sword." 
Arthur kept his sword till time came to give it 
back to the "arm clothed in white samite." He 
threw not his sword away until his hand could 
hold it no longer. Hands and swords must keep 
company while life and strength remain, and who 
breaks or throws sword away from sheer despair 
has lost sight of duty, in so far that our business 
is to do battle valiantly and constantly for right- 
eousness, and keep the sword at play in spite of 
dubious circumstances. Battles are often on the 
point of being won when they look on the point 



King Arthur 277 

of being lost, as was the case with Pelleas, whose 
hope died just at the hour when hope ought to 
have begun shouts befitting triumph; for that 
night when he lay his naked sword across Kttarre's 
naked neck, she, waking and finding whose' sword 
was lying, like a mad menace, on her breast, re- 
covered her womanhood, loved the knight, who 
came and went, and slew her not, as his right was, 
and loved him to her death; while he, the cause 
of her reformation, swung through the gloomy 
night with faith and courage lost. He should 
have held his faith, however his trust in one had 
been shamed and sunk. Faith in one snuffed out 
is not in logic to lose faith; for all are more than 
one. Trust Arthur; he was right. Pessimism is 
no sane mood. All history conspires to justify 
his attitude. Himself inspires optimism in us, and 
the three queens wait for him, and the black 
funeral barge that bears him, not to his funeral, 
but to some fair city where there seems one voice, 
and that a voice of welcome to this king; and 
besides all this, his name lights our nights till 
now, as if he were some sun, pre-empting night 
as well as day. Has not his optimism been justi- 
fied a hundred-fold ? Do those who view the pres- 
ent only, think to see all the landscape where 
deeds reap victories ? Time is so essential in the 
propagandism of good. Time is the foe of evil, 
but sworn ally of good. God owns the future. 



27^ A He;ro and Some; Other FoIvK 

King Arthur considered life a chance for serv- 
ice. Life is no abstraction, no theoretical science ; 
rather concrete, experimental. Magician Merlin's 
motto, too. We may think or act, though this 
of conduct. We may think or act, though this 
disjunctive is wrong, wholly wrong. There is no 
separation between act and thought in a wise es- 
timate. They are not enemies, but friends. We 
are to think and act. We are, in a word, not to 
dream or do, but dream and do, the dreaming 
being prelude to the doing. Who dreams not is 
metalHc. Dreams redeem deeds from being 
stereotyped, and make motions sinuous and 
graceful as a bird's flight across the sky; and 
when they impregnate conduct, deed becomes in- 
stinct with a melody thrilling and swe'et as a wood- 
thrush note. Arthur was no mystic. He did not 
dwell apart from men; he was a part of men. 
"The Mystic" is an admirable conception of the 
soul, living remote from society and action, see- 
ing our world as through a smoke. Mysticism 
has its truth and power. Many of us bluster and 
do, and do not stand apart and dwell enough with 
the unseen. 

"Always there stood before him, night and day, 
The imperishable presences serene, 
One mighty countenance of perfect calm;" 
And 

"Angels have talked with him and showed him thrones." 



King Arthur 279 

So much in him is needed to a soul hungry 
to be fortified for danger, duty, manliness. De- 
spise not a mystic's brooding, but recall that 
brooding is not terminal; that he who broods 
alone' has left life wearying around him as he 
found it, while his need was to change the cir- 
cumambient air of thought and action into some- 
thing better than it was ; and for such change he 
must associate him with the lives he fain would 
help. Arthur brooded and dreamed, and saw the 
Christ, and then conceived his worthiest service 
to be to interpret the What he heard and Whom 
he saw to men ; and in pursuance of such purpose 
he lived with knights, ladies, soldiers, and country- 
men. Him they saw and knew. "St. Simeon 
Stylites" is an application of another side of the 
same thought. Heroism is in this pillar saint, but 
a mistaken heroism. He stands, 

"A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud." 

But to what purpose? Hear him call, 

"I smote them with the cross," 

and feel assured from such a word that he who 
spoke, had he been where the battle raged, had 
left his stroke on many a shield; for his words 
have the crash of a Crusader's ax. What a loss 
it was to men that St. Simeon carrie not down 
from his pillar, clothed himself, made himself clean 



28o A He;ro and Somk Other Foi.k 

and wholesome, instead of filthy and revolting, 
and dwelt with people for whom Christ died. A 
religious recluse is a religious ignoramus, since 
he does not know that the one-syllable word in 
the vocabulary of Christ is, "Be of use." The 
problem of living, as Arthur saw vividly, was not 
how to get yourself through the world unhurt, but 
how to do the most for some one besides yourself 
while you are in the world; and this attitude is 
otherness, altruism. Nurture strength to use. 
Pass your might on. Knighthood was to serve 
everybody else first, after the fashion of the 
Founder of knighthood, even Christ, "who came, 
not to be ministered unto, but to minister." King 
Arthur served. Play battles stung him not to 
prowess, but, as Lancelot saw, in the actual battle, 
the hero was not Lancelot, but Arthur. May be 
a too deep seriousness was in him. I think it 
probable. He had been more masterful in wield- 
ing men had he been colored more by laughter 
and jest. We must not take ourselves, nor yet 
the world, with too continuous seriousness. There 
are intervals between battles when warriors may 
rest, and intervals in the' stress of deeds and sor- 
row where room is given for the caress and whole- 
some jest. That arch-jester, Jack Falstafif, had 
much reason with him. We like him, despite him- 
self, and despite ourselves, because there was in 
him such comradery. Though he was boister- 



King Arthur 281 

ous, yet was he jovial. All characters, save Christ, 
have limitations. Arthur had his. Lack of spright- 
liness was his mistake and lack. But the work 
to be done fills him with might unapproachable,, 
so that, 

"Like fire, he meets the foe, 
And strikes him dead for thine and thee." 

He is no play soldier, and foemen mark his 
sword as a thing to fear. A mutilated herdsman, 
rushing into Carlaen, and shaking bloody story 
from his hideous wounds, which, Arthur hearing,, 
though a tourneyment would blow its bugles on 
the plain erelong, forgets the coming joust, re- 
membering only a wrong to be avenged, and evil- 
doers to be' punished or destroyed, so they may 
no longer be a noxious presence in the land, and 
goes, and at tourney's close comes back, through 
the dark night, wet with rain ; but he has cleansed 
the hostile land of villains on that day. In human 
nature is a bias to escape the world, to get out 
of the turmoil, to seek cloisters of quiet, which 
bias "The Holy Grail" attacks. Arthur was no 
friend to the pursuit of the grail ; not that he 
loves not, with a passion white as sun's flame, the 
good and pure, but that he has sagacity to see 
such quest will scatter the round table and its 
fellowship, and would dispeople his forces, whose 
presence makes for peace and sovereignty in all 



^82 A He;ro and Some) Other Foi,k 

his realm and compels the sovereignty of law. 
Him, their king, these errant knights heeded not, 
so enticing and noble seemed the warfare they 
espoused, and thought their sovereign cold and 
calculating, while, in fact, he knew them for vision- 
aries. He was right. Without them he was 
bankrupt in strength to compel social betterment. 
The visionary, in so far as he is simply visionary, 
is foe to progress; for progress comes by battle 
and by association in affairs, and he who would 
be helper to the better life of man must mix with 
the currents of his time. Snowdrifts in the moun- 
tains and on the northern slopes that hold snows 
in their shadows for the summer's use; and dark 
mountain meadows, where fogs and rains soak 
every particle of sod, and waters percolate through 
the spongy root and soil to form bubbling 
streams; and the pines, whose shadows make a 
cool retreat where streams may not be drained 
dry by the sun; the silver threads of tributary 
hrooks ; the sponge of mountain mosses, which 
squeezes its cup of water into a larger laver, — all 
these seem remote from the broad river on whose 
flood merchants' fleets are slumbering, nor seem 
participants with these floodgates to the sea; yet 
are they adjuncts, though so far removed, and 
pay their tribute to the flood. 

Their service was as pronounced and valuable 
as if they had been huge as Orontes. There is 



King Arthur 283 

an absence which is presence, and there is a pres- 
ence which is absence; and what is asked of all 
men, near or far, is that they be helpers to the' 
general good. They must not, by intent or mis- 
take, escape their share of the public burden. 

A poet seems apart, and is not, but is to be 
esteemed a portion of this world's most turbulent 
life. To intend to have a share in this world's 
business is important. To shun the taking up 
your load when need is, is to be coward when 
your honor bids you be courageous. This means, 
be a citizen, neglect no ofhce in that worthy re- 
lation ; be not wandering knights, pursuing fire- 
flies, supposing them to be stars ; but be as Arthur, 
who found the Holy Grail, and drained its sacra- 
mental wine in truest fashion, in "staying by the' 
stuff ;" in being statesman, soldier, defender of the 
weak, reformer, liver of a clean life in public 
place, builder of a State, negotiator of schemes 
which make for the diminution of earth's ills and 
increase of earth's fairer provinces. Edward the 
Confessor was a monk, wearing a king's crown 
and refusing to discharge a king's offices, and 
thought himself a saint by such omission, when 
what God and the realm wanted and needed was 
a man to rule and sufifer for the common weal. 
Arthur was not a thing "enskied and sainted;" 
rather a wholesome man, whose duty lay in work- 
ing for men. Sir Percivale became a monk ; other 



284 A Hejro and Some Other Foi,k: 

knights returned no more', thus spilling the best 
blood of the table round. Meantime the king's 
enemies multiplied, and these visionaries deci- 
mated the ranks of opposition to the wrong; but 
come what would, King Arthur served. An ap- 
peal to him for help found answer, though treasons 
plotted at his back. As to his last battle, though 
his heart was breaking, he marched nor paused, 
perceiving, so long as he was king, he must up- 
hold the order of the State'. He was no dilettante. 
Great service called him, and he thought he heard 
the voice of God. Duty is a ponderous word in 
Arthur's lexicon. In "Lucretius," Tennyson 
shows the moral apathy of materialism by letting 
us look on at a suicidal death, and hear the cry, 
half-rage and half-despair, "What Is duty?" and 
in that fated cry, atheism has run its course. Here 
it empties Into its dead sea, and materialism finds 
its only possible outcome. This materialist of long 
ago Is the mouthpiece for his fraters in these 
last days. There Is one speech, and that a speech 
of dull despair, for those who say there Is no 
God ; and for them who have no God, there is 
no duty, for duty is born of hold on God. King 
Arthur, sure of God, therefore never asking, 
"What is duty?" but in its stead urges the nobler 
query, "Where 'is duty?" and so infused himself 
into the blood of empire ; aye, and more, into the 
spiritual blood of uncalendared centuries. 



King Arthur 285 

And King Arthur was pure. Vice is so often 
glorified and offers such chromo tints to the eye 
as that many superficial folks think virtue tame 
and vice exhilarating. Here lies the difficulty. 
They look on those parts which are contiguous 
to vice, but are really not parts of it. In the 
self of vice is nothing attractive. Lying, lusl, 
envy, hate, debauchery, — which of these is not 
tainted? Penuriousness is vice unadorned, and 
who thinks it fair ? Like Spenser's "false Duessa," 
it is revolting. Drunkenness, bestiality, spleen, — 
what roseate views shall you take of these? Who 
admires Caliban? And Caliban is vice, standing 
in its naked vileness and vulgarity. Man, meant 
for manhood, self-reduced to brutehood, — that is 
drunkenness. In an era when Dumas by fascinat- 
ing fictions was making vice ingratiating, Tenny- 
was rendering virtue magnificent. Can any per- 
son of just judgment rise from reading "Idyls of 
the King" without feeling a repugnance toward 
vice', like a nausea, and a magnetism in virtue? 
An admiration for Arthur becomes intense. The 
poet draws no moral from his parable : doing what 
is better, he puts morals into one's blood. While 
never railing at Guinivere, he makes us ashamed 
of her and for her, and does the same with Lance- 
lot. He makes virtue eloquent. King Arthur is 
neither drunkard nor libertine, therein contradict- 
ing the pet theories of many people's heroes. He 



286 A He;ro and Some Other Folk 



loves cleanness and is clean. He demands in man 
a purity equal to woman's; setting up one stand- 
ard of mortals and not two. The George Fourth 
style of king, happily, Arthur is not; for George 
was a shame to England and to men at large, 
while Arthur is a glory, burning on above the 
cliffs of Wales, like some brave sunrise whose 
colors never fade'. To men and women, he is 
one law of virtue and one law of love. When 
the years have spent their strength, then vice 
shows itself hideous vice. The' glamour vanished, 
no one can love or plead for wickedness. Virtue 
is wholly different; for to it the ages burn in- 
cense each year, rendering its loveliness more ap- 
parent and bountiful. Virtue grows in beauty, 
like some dear face we love. Heroism is virtue; 
manliness is virtue; devotion is virtue. Sum up 
those remembered deeds of which the centuries 
speak, and you will find them noble, virtuous. 
Seen as it is, and with the light of history on 
its face, vice is uncomely as a harlot's painted 
face. King Arthur is virile and he is noble, en- 
gaging and fascinating us like a romance written 
by a master, full of persuasive sweetness and en- 
during help. 

Besides, King Arthur was a religious man. 
This is the transparent explanation of his career. 
He is an attempted incarnation of the precepts 
and love of Christ. This long-vanished prince 



King Arthur 287 

knew that if a king might but repeat the miracle 
of Jesus' life in his own history, he would have 
achieved kingship indeed. "Mea vita vota" was 
Dempster's motto, — a sentiment Arthur knew by 
heart. His life was owed to God, and right man- 
fully he' paid his debt. Arthur exalted God in 
his heart and court and on hard-fought field. So 
intense and vivid his sense of God, he reminds 
us of the Puritan; but the Puritan touched to 
beatific beauty by the interpretation of love God's 
Christ came to give. Tennyson always made 
much of God, saw Him immanent in every hope 
of human betterment, saying, as we remember and 
can not forget : 

"Our little systems have their day — 

They have their day and cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of thee; 
And thou, O Lord, art more than they." 

"The Idyls of the King" and "In Memoriam" 
might felicitously be called treatises on theology 
written in verse. St. Augustine and Wesley were 
not more certainly theologians than this poet 
Laureate. The rest and help that come' to men 
in prayer is burned into the soul in "Enoch 
Arden :" 

"And there he would have knelt, but that his knees 
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug 
His fingers into the w^et earth and prayed." 



288 A Hkro and Some; Othe;r Foi,k 

And 

"He was not all unhappy. His resolve 
Upbore him, and firm faith and evermore 
Prayer from a living source within the will. 
And beating up through all the bitter world. 
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 
Kept him a living soul." 

And Arthur, dying, whispers : 

"More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
Rise, like a fountain, for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain. 
If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer. 
Both for themselves and those that call them friend? 
For so the whole round world is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

No wonder is there if King Arthur was 
upheld : such faith makes impotence giant- 
strengthed. He does not tremble. The earth 
may know perturbations, but not he. To tourna- 
ment or battle, or to death, he goes with smiling 
face. His trust upholds him. So good is faith. 
"In Memoriam" is the biography of doubt and 
faith at war. The battle waxes sore, but the day 
is God's. The battle ebbs to quiet. Calm after 
tempest. Tennyson could not stay in doubt. 'T is 
not a goodly land. If trepidation has white lip 
and cheek, 't is not forever. Living through an 
age of doubt, Tennyson, so sensitive to every cur- 



King Arthur 289 

rent of thought as that he felt them all, and in 
that feeling and interpretation and strife for mas- 
tery over the doubt that kills, made his book, 
as Milton has it, "The precious life-blood of a 
master spirit ;" and ends with : 

"Sunset and evening star, 
And one clear call for me. 

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face. 

When I have cross'd the bar." 

"In Memoriam" is thought, King Arthur is 
action ; and action is antidote for doubt. Charles 
Kingsley's advice, 

"Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long," 

is always pertinent and reasonable. This is ex- 
planation of that profound saying of Jesus, "If 
any man will do my will, he shall know of the 
doctrine." Life is exegesis of Scripture. Who 
do God's will catch sight of God's face, and their 
hearts are helped. Lowell's "Sir Launfal" urges 
this same truth. He who, for weary and painful 
years, had haunted the world, seeking the Holy 
Grail and finding not the thing he sought, comes 
home discouraged to find in winter his castle had 
forgotten him, and he was left a wreck of what he 
had been in his better days ; yet finds, in giving 
19 



290 A HsRO AND Some; Othbr FoIvK 

alms to a leprous beggar at his castle gate to 
whom he had denied alms in the spirit of alms 
when he set out to hunt the Holy Grail, that in 
so giving he found the Christ. Action helps God 
into the heart. Doubts are, many of them, brain- 
born and academical; and such, service helps to 
dispel. To Arthur, God was vital fact. To Him 
he held as tenaciously as to his sword; and he 
was comforted. All good things are included in 
religion, and all great things. If men become 
martyrs, they become at the same time function- 
aries in the palace of every worthy spirit. I sup- 
pose the hunger for discovery and knowledge are 
nothing other than the soul's hunger after God. 
He is the secret of great discontent. The soul 
wants God, and on the way to Him are astron- 
omies, and literatures, and new-found hemi- 
spheres. Aspiration finds voice in Christianity. 
"Columbus," a poem of resonant music, speaks 
aspiration. Him — 

"Who pushed his prows Into the setting sun, 
And made West East, and sailed the dragon's mouth. 
And came upon the mountain of the world, 
And saw the rivers roll from paradise," — 

him, God-inspired as himself holds, saying: 

"And more than once, in days 
Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope 
Sank all but out of sight, I h^ard His voice: 
Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand; 



King Arthur 291 

Fear not, — and I shall hear his voice again — 
I know that He has led me all my life, 
And I am not yet too old to work His will — 
His voice again." 

And King Arthur finds God helps him into all 
things worth while. Bravery, determination, kind- 
ness, purity, magnanimity, safe faith in God's su- 
premacy, — all spring about him as he walks as 
flowers about a path in summer-time. Nothing 
good was foreign to him. 

Christianity is the one philosophy of manhood 
in whose harness are no vulnerable parts. "The 
Palace of Art" presents the poet's perception of 
the failure of culture. Ethics, not aesthetics, com- 
pel manhood; and behind ethics, theology. God 
must live in life, if life shall put on goodness as 
a royal robe. 

And such a man as Arthur has passed into the' 
enduring substance of this world's best thought 
and purpose. We see him — not saw him. He is 
never past, but ever present. We see him dying, 
and with Sir Bedivere, who loved him, cry, 

"Thy name and glory cling 
To all high places, like a golden cloud. 
Forever!" 



„. 



The Story of the Pictures 

A MAN and a woman were dreaming. Both 
were young; and one was strong and one 
was fair. They were lovers, and the world vv^as 
very beautiful, and life as rhythmic as a poet's 
verse. Things which to some' seem remote as 
heaven, to youth and love seem near enough to 
touch, if one do but stretch out the hand. This 
youth and maid were dreaming, and their hands 
were clasped, and sometimes they looked in each 
other's eyes — sometimes out across the fields, 
sloping toward sunset. The world seemed young 
as they, and the sky was fairly singing, with 
voices sweet as kisses from dear lips long ab- 
sent, — those voices saying, saying always, "Life 
is fair — is fair;" and receding, as blown by on a 
gentle wind, drifted "Life is fair;" and the lovers 
looked at each other and were glad. 

He was an artist, and his idle hand wrought 
pictures unconsciously. He did not think things, 
but saw things. His lips were not given to fre- 
quent speech, even with the woman he loved. He 
saw her, whether he sat thus beside her or whether 
292 



Thk Story of thk Pictures 293 

he sat apart from her with seas between — he saw 
her always ; for his was the gift of sight. He 
saw visions as rapt prophets do. Life was a 
pageant, and he saw it all. 

His brush is part of his hand, and his palette' 
is as his hand's palm. Painting is to him mono- 
logue. He is telling what he sees ; talking to him- 
self, as children and poets do. Now, he talks to 
the woman he loves and to himself in pictures, 
she saying nothing, save as her hand speaks in 
a caress, and that her eyes are dreamy sweet; 
and the artist's hand dreams over the paper with 
glancing touch, and this picture grows before 
their eyes : A man and a woman, young and fair, 
are on a hilltop alone, looking across a meadow- 
land, lovely with spring and blossoms and love- 
making of the birds ; and ponds where lily-pads 
shine in the sun, like metal patines, floating on 
the pool; and a flock lying in a quiet place; and 
a lad plowing in a field, the blackbirds follow- 
ing his furrow ; and a blue sky, with dainty clouds 
of white faint against it, like breathing against a 
window-pane in winter; and a farmhouse, where 
early roses cluster, and little children are at play, — 
this, and his brush loiters, and the' woman knows 
her artist has painted a picture of youth; and 
both look away as in a happy dream. 

The artist paints again: and the landscape is 
in nothing changed. It might have been a re- 



294 A H:eRO AND SoMK Othkr Foi,k 

print rather than a repainting. A morning land, 
where' beauty and bounty courted Hke man and 
maid. No tints were lost. The sunlight was un- 
failing, and roses clustered with their spendthrift 
grace and loveliness; and the woman, looking at 
her lover, wondered why he painted the' same 
landscape twice, but, waiting, saw the artist paint 
two figures, a man and woman at life's prime. 
She sees they are the youth and maid of the first 
picture, only older — and what besides? Then they 
were a promise, a possibility, now they are — what 
are they? They are the same; they are not the 
same. She is disappointed in them ; not because 
their beauty has faded, but that their look has 
changed. Their faces are not haggard, nor cut 
with strange arabesques of pain and care, nor are 
they craven or vicious ; but the artist speeds his 
hand as if at play, while every touch is bringing 
the faces out until they obliterate the former 
beauty utterly. The landscape is still dewy fresh 
and fair — ^the faces have no hint of morning in 
them. Faces, not bad, but lacking tenderness; 
expression, self-sufficient; eyes, frosty cold; and 
the woman's eyes light on the children, playing 
beside the white farmhouse, and in them is no 
inexpressible tenderness of mother-love, mute, like 
a caress ; prosperous faces the world has gone 
quite well with, that is plain, but faces having no 
beckoning in them, no tender invitation, like a 



The; Story of the Pictures 295 

sweet voice, saying, "Enter and welcome." And 
she who looked at the pictures sobbed, scarcely- 
knowing why, only the' man and woman sorely 
disappointed her when they had grown to matu- 
rity; poetry and welcome and promise had faded 
from them as tints fade from a withered flower. 
So much was promised — so little was fulfilled. 

Meantime, while' these lovers sit on the hill- 
side, and the artist has been talking in pictures 
as the clouds do, the sun has sloped far toward 
setting. The west is aflame, like a burning 
palace ; the crows are flapping tired wings toward 
their nests ; the swallows are sporting in the air, 
as children do in surf of the blue seas; smoke 
from the farm chimneys visible begins to lie level 
across the sky, and stays like a cloud at anchor. 
But the artist's hand is busy with another pic- 
ture. 

And the landscape is the same. Mayhap he is 
not versatile ; and, think again, mayhap he has 
purpose in his reduplication. Like wise men, let 
us wait and see. A springtime-land as of old, and 
two figures ; and the woman he loves watches, 
while' her breathing is strangely like a sob. Now 
the figures are a man and a woman, stooped and 
gray. "Age," she says, "you paint age now, and 
age — is not beautiful;" and he, answering with 
neither lips nor eyes, paints swiftly on. The man 
is aged and leaning on a staff. His strength is 



296 \ H:eRO AND SOMK Othkr FoIvK 

gone. His staff is not for ornament, but need. 
The woman is wrinkled, and her hair is snowy 
white ; and the girl at the artist's side tries vainly 
to suppress a sob. She, too, will soon be gray, 
and she loves not age and decrepitude ; and the 
face in ithe picture is faded, no rose-tints in the 
cheeks. So old and weak — old age is very pitiful. 
But the picture is not finished yet. Wait ! Wait 
a little, and give the artist time. It is not evening 
yet. Sunset lingers a little for him. His hand 
runs now like a hurrying tide. He is painting 
faces. Why linger over the face of age? If it 
were youth — ^but age? But he touches these aged 
faces Idvingly, as a son might caress his aged 
father and mother with hand and with kiss ; and 
beneath his touch the aged faces grow warm and 
tender, passing sweet. To look at them was rest. 
Their eyes were tender and brave. You remem- 
ber they were old and feeble folk — young once', 
but long ago; but how noble the old man's face, 
scarred though it is with saber cut! To see him 
makes you valiant; and to see him longer, makes 
you valiant for goodness, which is best of all. 

And the woman's face is lit with God's calm 
and God's comfort. A smile is in her eyes, and a 
smile lies, like sunlight, across her lips. Her hair 
is the silver frame that hems some precious pic- 
ture in. She is a benediction, blessed as the rest- 
ful night to weary toilers on a burning day. And 



The Story of the; Pictures 297 

the artist, with a touch quick as a happy thought^ 
outlined a shadow, clad in tatters, and a child clad 
in tatters at her side; and the girl, leaning over 
the painting, thought the chief shadow was Death. 
But the artist hasted; and on a sudden, wings 
sprung from the shoulders of tattered mother and 
child, and they two lifted up their hands; the 
woman, lifting her hands above the dear forms 
of old age, spread them out in blessing, and the 
little child lifted her hands, clasped as in prayer; 
and these angels were Poverty, praying for and 
blessing the man and woman who had been their 
help. 

And the artist lover, under the first picture, 
in quaint letters, such as monks in remote ages 
used, wrote this legend, "To-morrow;" and the 
woman, taking the pencil, wrote in her sweet girl- 
ish hand, "Youth is Very Beautiful." The artist 
took back his pencil, and under the second pic- 
ture scrolled, "These Loved Themselves Better 
Than They Loved Others ;" and the woman wrote, 
"Their To-morrow was Failure." Under the third 
picture the artist wrote, "These Loved God Best 
and Their Neighbors as Themselves ;" and the 
woman took the pencil from his hand and wrote, 
"Old Age is Very Beautiful— More Beautiful Than 
Youth," and a tear fell and blotted some of the 
words, as a drop of rain makes a blurred spot on 
a dusty pane. And the lover said, "Serving others 



298 A Hiiro and Some Other Foi,k 

is better than serving ourselves;" and the girl's 
sweet voice answering, hke an echo, "Serving 
others is better than serving ourselves." 

And the sun had set. The glow from the sky 
was fading, as embers on a hearth, pale to gray 
ashes ; and an owl called from an elm-tree on the 
hillside, while these two arose, with faces like the 
morning, and, taking the pictures, walked slowly 
as lovers will ; and so, fading into the deepening 
twilight, I heard her saying, "Serving others is 
life at its best," and him replying, "Jesus said, 
'The poor yef have always with you ;' " and their 
footsteps and voices died away together in the 
gloaming; and a whip-poor-will called often and 
plaintively from the woodland across the field. 



XI 

The Gentleman in Literature 

HUMOR is half pathos and more. This sword 
has two edges. On the one, shining Hke 
burnished silver, j^ou may see smiles reflected as 
from a mirror; on the other, tears stand thick, 
like dews on flowers at early morning of the later 
spring. Humor is a dual faculty, as much mis- 
conceived by those who listen as by those who 
speak. We do not always have wit to know the 
scope of what we do. Thoughts of childhood, 
says the poet, are long, long thoughts ; but who 
supposes childhood knows they are? Nor is this 
altogether a fault. To feel the sublime sequence 
of all we did would burden us as Atlas was bur- 
dened by holding up the sky. Life might easily 
come to be sober to somberness, which is a thing 
unwholesome and undesirable. SunHght must 
have its way. Darkness must not trespass too far ; 
and every morning says to every night, "Thus far, 
but no farther." 

To many readers, Don Quixote seems fantastic, 
and Cervantes a laughter-monger. Cervantes had 
suffered much. His life reads like a novelist's 
299 



300 A Hkro and Somk Othe;r Folk 

tale. He belooged to the era of Spenser and 
Shakespeare; of Philip II and William the Silent; 
of Leicester and Don John of Austria; of The 
Great Armada and the Spanish Inquisition; of 
Ivope de Vega and Cervantes — for he was, in the 
Hispanian peninsula, his own greaitest contem- 
porary — and to this hour this battle-scarred soldier 
of fortune stands the tallest figure of Spanish lit- 
erature. His was a lettered rearing, and a young 
manhood spent as a common soldier. At Lepanto 
he lost hand and arm. In five long, weary, and 
bitter years of slavery among Algerine piraites, he 
held up his head, being a man; plotted escape in 
dreams and waking; fought for freedom as a pin- 
ioned eagle might ; was at last rescued by the 
Society for the Redemption of Slaves ; sailed home 
from slavery to penury; came perilously near the 
age of threescore, poverty-stricken and unknown, 
when, like a sun which leaps from sunrise to noon 
at a single bound, this maimed soldier sprang 
mid-sky, impossible to be ignored or forgotten, 
and disclosed himself, the marked Spaniard of his 
era; and on the same day of 1616, Cervantes and 
Shakespeare stopped their life in an unfinished 
line, and not a man since then has been able to 
fill out the broken meaning. This man had not 
wine, but tears to drink. Yet he jests, and the 
world laughs with him ; though we feel sure that 
while his age and after ages laugh and applaud. 



The GKNTi:<:eMAN in I^itkrature 301 

Miguel Cervantes sits with laughter all faded from 
his face, and the white look of pain settled about 
his lips, while tears "rise in the heart and gather 
to the eyes." Tears sometimes make laughter 
and jest the wilder. Men and women laugh to 
keep their hearts from breaking. 

Cervantes has ostensibly drawn a picture of a 
madman, and in fact has painted a gentleman. 
What his intent was, who can be so bold as to say? 
What part of his purpose was, we know. He 
would excoriate a false and flippant chivalry. Con- 
temporaneous chivalry he knew well; for he had 
been a common soldier, wounded and distressed. 
He had seen what a poor triviality that once noble 
thing had grown to be. Institutions become effete. 
Age is apt to sap the strength of movements as 
of men. Feudalism and the Crusades had com- 
missioned the knight-errant; and now, when law 
began to hold sword for itself, the self-constituted 
legal force — knight-errantry — was no longer 
needed. But to know when an institution has 
served its purpose is little less than genius. Some 
things can be laughed down which can not be 
argued down, A jest is not infrequently more 
potent than any syllogism. Some things must be 
laughed away, other things must be wept away; 
S'O that humor and pathos are to be ranked among 
the mighty agents for reform. And one purpose 
Cervantes had was to laugh a tawdry knight- 



302 A Hbro and Some Othe;r Foi<k 

errantry off the stage. In long years of soldiery, I 
doubt not he had grown to hate this empty boast, 
and his nursed wrath now breaks out like a vol- 
cano. This was his apparent purpose — but who 
can say this was all his purpose? "King Lear" 
has a double action. Mayhap, Don Quixote has 
a double meaning. We are always attaching 
meanings to works of genius. But you can not 
tie any writer's utterance down to some poior alti- 
tude. Great utterances have at least a half-infinite 
application. Tennyson felt this, saying — as we 
read in his son's biography of him — regarding 
explanations of his "Idyls of the King:" "1 hate 
to be tied down to 'this means that,' because the 
thought within the image is much more than any 
one interpretation ;" and, "Poetry is like shot-silk, 
with many glancing colors. Every reader will find 
his own interpretation according to his ability, and 
according to his sympathy with the poet." What 
is true of poetry is true of all imaginative literature. 
An author may not have analyzed his own motive 
in its entirety. In any case, we may hold to this, 
Don Quixote was a gentleman^ and is the first 
gentleman whose portrait is given us in literature. 
We have laughed at Don Quixote, but we have 
learned to love him. The "knight of the rueful 
countenance," as we see him now, is not himself 
a jest, but one of literature's 'most noble figures; 
and we love him because we must. Was it mere 



The GentIvEman in L^iterature 303 

chance that in drawing this don, Cervantes clothed 
him with all nobilities, and shows him — living and 
dying — good, courageous, pure ; in short, a man ? 
This scarcely seems a happening. Seas have subtle 
undercurrents. I venture, Don Quixote has the 
same, and marks the appearance of a gentleman 
in literature, since which day that person has been 
a recurring, ennobling presence on the pages of 
fiction and poetry. 

A gentleman is a comparatively recent creation 
in life, as in letters. Christ was the foremost and 
first gentleman. After him all gentility patterns. 
With the law of fhe imagination we are familiar, 
which is this : Imagination deals only with materials 
supplied by the senses. Imagination, in other 
words, is not strictly originative, but, rather, ap- 
propriative, giving a varied placing to images on 
hand, just as the kaleidoscope makes all its mul- 
tiform combinations with a given number of pieces. 
Imagination does not make materials, is no magi- 
cian, but is an architect. Admitting this law, we 
can readily see how the creation of a gentleman 
does not lie in the province of imagination. 
Homer's heroes are the men Homer knew, with 
a poetic emphasis on strength, stature, prowess. 
His era grew warriors and nothing else, and so 
Homer paints nothing else. Human genius has 
limits. Man is originative in character; and 
poets — "of imagination all compact" — catch this 



304 A H:eRO AND Some Othkr Foi^k 

new form of life, and we call the picture poetry. 
All civilization, to the days of Jesus, produced but 
one character, so far as we may read, worthy to 
be thought entire gentleman, and this was Joseph, 
the Jew, premier of Egypt. He is the most manl}'- 
man of pre-Christian civilizations. Or probably 
Moses must be listed here. Classic scholarship 
can show no gentleman Greece produced. Greek 
soil grew no such flowers beneath its radiant 
sky. Plato was a philosopher — not gentleman. 
Socrates was an iconoclast, but not a manly man 
and helpful spirit. Greek heroes were guilty of 
atrocious and unthinkable sins. Test them by this 
canon of Alfred Tennyson : "I would pluck my 
hand from a man, even if he were my greatest 
hero or dearest friend, if he wronged a woman or 
told her a lie ;" and, so tested, where must Greek 
heroes be classified? Greece and Rome produced 
heroes, but not gentlemen. Julius Csesar was the 
flower of the Latin race. Nothing app'roximates 
him. Great qualities cluster in him like stars in 
the deep sky. But his ambition was like to that 
of Milton's Satan, and his lust was a bottomless 
pit. As a national heroic figure, Julius Caesar is 
dazzling as a sun at summer noon ; but as a gen- 
tleman he cuts poorer figure than Lancelot or Sir 
Tristram. The gentleman is not an evolution, but 
a creation, Christ created the. gentleman as cer- 
tainly as he created the world. 



Th:^ Gentleman in IvITerature 305 

Now, literature is what Emerson says genius 
is, a superlative borrower. The state of a civiliza- 
tion at a given time will gauge the poet's concept. 
He can not pass beyond the world's noblest no- 
tions to his hiour. If Greece and Rome produced 
no man, settle to it that Greek and Roman litera- 
tures will produce no man. Sculptor, as Phidias ; 
statesman, as Pericles ; dramatist, as ^schylus ; 
general, as Themistocles ; stem justice, as Aris- 
tides, — Greece can show; and such characters the 
historians, dramatists, and epic poets will delineate 
and celebrate. Horace is a looking-glass, and 
holds his genius so as to catch the shadows of 
men passing by. This poets do, and can do no 
more. They are not strictly creative. We mis- 
take their mission. God has somehow kept the 
■creative power in his own possession. Men can 
appropriate; God can create. So what we find is, 
that ancient literature never attempted depicting 
a gentleman. Those days had no such persons. 
But Christ came and set men a-dreaming. He 
filled men's souls to the brim with expectation 
and wonder akin to fear and anticipation of im- 
possibilities ; and what he was, men fondly and 
greatly dreamed they might aspire to be. And 
thus the gentleman became a prospective fact in 
life and after life, in literature ; for we think it 
has been fairly shown how literature produces no 
type till life has produced it first. Literature is 



3o6 A H:eRo and Some Other Foi^k 

not properly productive, but reproductive ; not cre- 
ative, but appropriative. As men climb a moun- 
tain on a dark^ still night, to watch a sunrise, so 
the race began to climb toward manhood. The 
nig*ht was long, and this mountain taller than 
Himalayas ; and man slept not, but climbed. His 
groping toward this sunrise of soul is the epic of 
history. Dante knew not a gentleman, and could 
not dream him therefore. Mediaevalism learned to 
paint the Madonna's face, but not manhood's look. 
Character is the last test of genius. Man saw gray 
streaks of dawn, rimming far, ragged peaks, and 
still he climbed; and, on a morning, beheld the 
sunrise ! And if you will note, 't is Don Quixote 
standing on the mountain's crest. 

Some things can be adequately represented in 
marble. For "the Laocoon" marble is probably 
the best method of expression. Fear, superhuman 
effort, anguish, brute strength mastering human 
strength, — these are the thoughts to be expressed, 
and are brought out in marble with singular 
clearness and fidelity. For some things color is 
a necessity, and marble would be totally inade- 
quate. "The Greek Slave" may be put in stone; 
the bewildering face of a world's Christ can never 
be seriously attempted in marble, the futility of 
such attempt being so apparent. Color, lights 
and shadows are essential to give hints of deep 
things of deep soul. Hoflfman must have canvas. 



The; Genti.kman in IyiT:eRATURK 307 

and colors. You must paint the Christ. And 
some facts can not be painted. They are abstract, 
and can not be intimated by anything short of 
words. You can paint a man — Saul of Tarsus, or 
Charlemagne — but can not paint a gentleman; for 
he represents no single majesty, but an essential 
and intricate balance of all useful, great, and noble 
qualities. He can be painted only by words ; so 
that literature is the solitary means of making ap- 
parent the shadow of that divine thing, a gentleman. 
Don Quixote becomes intensely interesting, 
then, as a new attempt in creative genius. But 
dare we think a gentleman could be ludicrous 
and fantastic? for this the don was. We revolt 
against the notion that so gracious a thing could 
be grotesque. Yet is this our mature thought? 
Do not the facts certify that from this world's 
unregenerate standpoint manliness is grotesque? 
Was not Christ looked upon as mad? Did not 
his ideas of manliness appear as nothing other than 
fantastic, when he would substitute love for might, 
meekness for braggadocio, and purity of heart for 
an omnipresent sensuality? What were his ideals 
of manhood but battling with windmills or being 
enamored of a myth ? Tested by standards of this 
world's make, his notions and conduct were sheerly 
fantastic. As recorded on one occasion, "They 
laughed him to scorn ;" and this they did many 
another time, covertly or openly. Indeed, grasp- 



3o8 A Hejro and Soms Othe;r Folk 

ing the state of civilization as then existing, and 
comprehending Christ's non-earthly idea of what a 
gentleman was, we can not be slow to perceive 
how ludicrous this conception would be to the 
Roman world. Tall dreams seem madness. Ham- 
let's feigned madness puzzles us even yet. Many 
an auditor heard Columbus with a smile ill-con- 
cealed behind his beard. All high ideality sounds 
a madman's babble. To see a true life live truly 
will strike many as a jest, and others as pathos 
too deep for sobs. 

Don Quixote conceived a man ought to live 
for virtue. To be self-dedicated to the help of 
others ; to be courageous as an army which had 
never met defeat; to be self-forgetful, so that hun- 
ger, pain, thirst, fatigue, become trifles ; to have 
love become absorbing; to fill the mind's unfaith- 
omed sky with dreams outshining dawns ; to count 
honor to be so much more than life, as that honor 
is all and life is naught ; to interpret all men and 
women at their best, and so to expect good and 
not suspicion evil; to meet all men on the high 
level of manhood ; and to love God with such 
persistency and eagerness as that the soul's soli- 
tudes are peopled with him as by a host^ — if this 
be not a gentleman, we have misconceived the 
species. Read this history of his early and later 
battles for right, and you will' not find an impurity 
of word, suggestion, thought. God's lilies are not 



Thk Gi;ni%e;man in IvITSratur^s 309 

cleaner, I confess that the knight's love for 
Dulcinea del Tobosa moves me to tears. I never 
can smile or jest at him when his heart and lips 
hold with fealty to an ideal love. His love created 
her. He found her a clod, but flung her into the 
sky and made her a star. Is not this love's uniform 
history? Blinded, not of lust or ambition, but 
of ideality. Saul met Christ at noon, and was 
blinded by his vision ; and would not all brave men 
covet blindness thus incurred? And better to be 
blinded, as Don Quixote, by a ravishing ideal, 
than to see, besotted in soul and shut out from God. 
That humorous figure astride lean Rosinante, es- 
quired by pudgy, sensible Sancho; eager for 
chances to be of use ; faithful to his love as dawn to 
sun ; strong in his desire of being all eyes to see 
distress, all ears to hear a call for succor; sitting 
a dark night through in vigil, tireless, courageous, 
waiting for day to charge on what proved to be 
fulling hammers, making tumult with their own 
stamping; or, again, asleep in the inn bed, fighting 
with wine-skins and dreaming himself battling 
with giants, — this does not touch me as being hu- 
morous so much as it does as being pathetic, un- 
speakably pathetic, and manfully courageous. I 
see, but do not feel, the humor. I have followed 
Don Quixote as faithfully as Sancho Panza on his 
"Dapple ;" have seen him fight, conquer, sufifer 
defeat, ride through his land of dreams ; have seen 



3IO A He;ro and S0M15 Other Folk 

his pasteboard helmet; have noted melancholy set- 
tle round him as shadows on the landscape of an 
autumn day; have seen him grow sick, weaken, 
die; but have known in him only high dreams, 
attempted high achievings ; have found him 
honor's soul, and holding high regard for women; 
have been spectator of goodness as unimpeach- 
able as heaven^ and purity deep, like that which 
whitens round the throne — ^a human soul given 
over to goodness, and named, for cause, "Quixada 
the Good." And his goodness seems a contagion. 
For two and a half centuries since Cervantes 
painted this picture of a gentleman, literature has 
given less or more of heed to similar attempts; 
though as result, as I suppose, there are but 
two life-size pictures which unhesitatingly we name 
gentlemen as soon as our eyes light on them. Pro- 
file or silhouette of him there has been, but of the 
full-length, full-face figure, only two. Shakespeare 
did not attempt this task. Aside from Hamlet — 
who was not meant to sit for this picture, though 
he had been no ill character for such sitting — 
there is not among Shakespeare's men an intima- 
tion of such undertaking. Would this princely 
genius had put his hand to this attempt, though, 
as seems clear to me, Shakespeare did not conceive 
a gentleman. His ideas were not quite whitened 
with Christ's morning light enough to have per- 
ceived other than the natural man. Shakespeare's 



The GentivKman in I^iterature 311 

men are always "a little lower than the angels ;" 
whereas a gentleman might fittingly stand among 
angels as a brother. This one star never swung 
across the optic-glass of our great Shakespeare. 
That spiritual-mindedness which is life he scarcely 
possessed. This was his limitation. Spenser 
stood higher on this mount of vision. He con- 
ceived and executed a picture of pure womanhood, 
and, had he attempted, might have sketched a 
wondrous face and figure of a gentleman. Even 
as it was, he gave intimations of this coming 
king. He seems one who gathers fuel for a fire^ 
but never sets the flame. His figures shift, and 
present no^ central character of manhood who 
grows and furnishes standard of comparison. Mil- 
ton's genius was cast in a cyclopean mold, and 
needed distances remote as heaven and hell to 
give right perspective to his figures, and his su- 
preme art concerns itself with Saltan, and arch- 
angels, and God. 

Of this ideal gentleman we have had growing 
hints. Literature, more and more, concerns itself 
with spiritual quantities. The air of our century 
is aioimatic with these beautiful conceptions, as 
witness Jean Valjean, Dr. MacLure, Deacon 
Phoebe, Sidney Carton, Daniel Deronda, Donal 
Grant, Bayard, Red Jason, Pete, Captain Moray, 
John Halifax, and Caponsacchi, Some of these 
pictures seem more than side views. But a gen- 



312 A HijRO AND Some; Other Folk 

tleman should be, must be, nobly normal. He is 
a balance of virtue. Symmetry impresses us in him, 
as when we look at the Parthenon. All his powers 
are in such delicate balance as that they seem 
capable of easy perturbation, yet are, in fact, im- 
perturbable as stars. The gentleman in life is 
becoming a common figure. We have known 
such — so strong, quiet, heroic, calm, sure of the 
future, knit to God, big with fidelity and faith, 
that they translated into literal speech the holy 
precepts of the Book of God. So tested, this world 
grows surely better. Man has lost in romantic 
glitter of costume and bearing, but has gained im- 
measurably in manhood. The gospel is peopling 
the world with men. To suppose God meant to 
change men to saints was a misconception. St. 
Simeon Stylites was that old misconception real- 
ized. We can but honor him, so vast his hunger, 
so noble his strife, so courageous his attitude, 
when he shouts, "I smote them with the cross;" 
but St. Simeon did not realize God's notion. 
Goodness is fraternal, accessible, genial. John 
Storm, in Hall Caine's "The Christian," is sus- 
ceptible to the same criticism. He is not balanced. 
He means well, but is erratic, fitful, lacking center. 
He is like a bird lost in storms, flying in circles. 
He thought to be a saint, whereas Christ did not 
come to make saints, but to make men; and the 
sooner we realize that a "saint" or a "Christian'* 



Th:^ Geinti^kman in I^iteraturk 313 

is not the end of the gospel, the better will it be 
for Christianity. Christianity is God's method of 
making men; and Christianity is not an end, but 
a means. When God gets his way, he wants to 
have this world populated with men and women. 
Whether Caine meant John Storm for an ideal 
Christian we can not say. There is strength here, 
as in all he has written; but Storm's lacks are 
many and great. He is enthusiast, but flig-hty. 
He means well, but is spasmodic in its display. 
Storm might have grown into a hero had he lived 
longer, and, as a flame, leaped high at some point 
in his career. Both as man and Christian, he dis- 
appoints us. Red Jason, in "The Bondman," is 
a worthier contribution to the natural history of 
the gentleman. View him how you will, he is 
great. His moral stature lifts itself like the mass 
of a mountain. His nature seems a fertile field, 
seeded down to heroisms, and every seed germinat- 
ing and growing to maturity. Jason has virtues 
vast of girth as huge forest-trees, but he is scarcely 
companionable. Glooms gather round him as 
night about a hamlet in a valley. He is moral, 
imposing, heroic, yet is there something lacking — • 
is it voice, self-poise, what? — lacking of being 
quite a gentleman. Nor was he shaped for such 
a role by his creator, but was meant to sit for the 
portrait of a hero. And such he is to the point 
of moving the spirit, as by the lightning's touch. 



314 A Hbro and Some; Othe;r FoiyK 

Goethe was not capable of conceiving a gen- 
tleman. His "Wilhelm Meister" and himself fall 
so low in the scale of worth as to preclude his 
seeing so serene a face. Goethe's sky was clouded, 
and fine lines of finest character are only brought 
out under unhindered sunlight. Manhood is a 
serene thing. Though storm-bolts rain about it 
thick as hail, the quiet of deep seas reigns in it. And 
Dumas's men are each a bon vivant, save the son of 
Porthos. These dusty and bloody guardsmen had 
not enough moral fiber to fill a thimble. They 
think the world of men and women a field for 
forage. This physical dash and courage, this gal- 
loping of steeds, and sabers pummeling steeds' 
sides, stands instead of character. In "Marius 
the Epicurean," Walter Pater has given, as I 
think, a true picture of one who in the Roman 
era aspired to be a man. He is cold, and in con- 
sequence barren ; but such is an accurate reading 
of Roman attempts at manhood; for ordinary 
Epicureanism was fervid to sensuality, and the 
Stoic was frigid. To heathen conception there 
was no middle ground. The warm color on cheek, 
the morning in the eyes, the geniality in the hand, 
the fervor at the heart, the alert thought, the winged 
imagination, the sturdy will, the virile moral 
sense, the responsive conscience, the courage which 
laughed to die for duty, — ^these could not be amal- 
gamated. Heroic qualities have always been na- 



Ths Genti^kman in I^itkrature 315 

tive to the soul as warmth to the south wind. All 
history is rich with tapestries of tragic and colossal 
heroisms, so as to make us proud that we are men. 
Heroisms are harsh, but manliness is tender. And 
in this seeming irreconcilability lies the difficulty 
of constructing a gentleman. 

But attempts thicken. In our century they 
group together like violets on a stream's bank 
fronting the sun in spring. Literary artists, know- 
ing how difficulties hedge this attempt, hesitate. 
There are many hints of the gentleman. Let us be 
glad for that, seeing we are enriched thereby. "Rab 
and His Friends" gives so strong a picture of 
stolid strength in love's fidelity, which knows to 
serve and suffer and die without a moan or being 
well aware of aught save love. And Dr. MacLure 
is a dear addition to our company of manhood, 
shouldering his way through Scotland's winter's 
storm and cold because need calls him ; serving as 
his Master had taught him so long ago ; forgetting 
himself in absorbing thought for others; lonely as 
a fireless hearth ; longing for friendship which would 
not fail ; reaching for Drumsheugh's hand, and hold- 
ing it when death was claiming the good physician's 
hand. We could easily conceive we had been seated 
at the deathbed of a gentleman. Deacon Phoebe 
stands as a character in Annie Trumbull Slosson's 
"Seven Dreamers," a book which, outside Cable's 
"Old Creole Days," is to me the most perfect series 



3i6 A He;ro and Somb Other FoIvK 

of brief character-sketches drawn by an American 
author, and entirely worthy to stand by "A Window 
in Thrums," and "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," 
and "In Ole Virginia." Deacon Phoebe has for- 
gotten himself. Unselfishness does not often rise 
to such heights. This "dreamer" of "Francony 
Way" is full brother to Sidney Carton, born across 
the seas. Self-forgetfulness, so beautiful as that 
even name and sex become a memory dim as a dis- 
tant sail upon an evening sea, — this must be a sight 
fitted to bring laughter to the heart of God. Deacon 
Phoebe is one trait in a gentleman. Sidney Carton 
is of the same sort, save that the hero element 
stands more apparent. His is a larger field, a more 
attractive background, thus throwing his figure into 
clearer relief. Deacon Phoebe was the self-abase- 
ment of humility, Sidney Carton is the supreme sur- 
render of love ; but the end of both is service. There 
ought to be a gallery in our earth from which men 
and women might lean and look on nobilities like 
Sidney Carton. That beatified face ; that hand hold- 
ing a woman's trembling hand, what time he whis- 
pered for her comfort, "I am the resurrection and 
the life," as the crowded tumbrel rattled on to the 
guillotine, and he faced death with smile as sweet 
as love upon his face, and love making a man thus 
divine, — this is Sidney Carton, ,who stirs our soul 
as storms stir the seas. Bonaventure, as drawn by 
Cable, is of similar design. He is unconscious as 



ThK GlENTlvEMAN IN I^ITERATURE 317 

a flower; but had learned, as his schaolmaster- 
priest had taught him, to write "self" with a small 
"s;" so an untutored soul, lacerated with grief, 
pierced by suffering, gave himself over to goodness 
and help, becoming absorbed therein. Such is Bon- 
aventure. He was what Tennyson has said of "the 
gardener's daughter," "A sight to make an old man 
young." 

Love has learned to work miracles In character. 
Rains do not wash air so clean as love washes char- 
acter, whiting "as no fuller on earth can white" it. 
And how constantly manhood neighbors with love 
is a beautiful and noteworthy circumstance. Here 
place Pete, in "The Manxman." You can not over- 
praise him. Some esteem him a fabulous character ; 
but knowing his island and people well, I feel sure 
he is flesh and blood, though flesh and blood so 
uncommon and superior stagger our faith for a 
moment. It is the glory of our race that at rare 
springtime it bursts into such bloom that painter 
and poet are both bankrupt in attempting to copy 
this loveliness. Pete is such an effort of nature. 
PTis letters to himself, written as from his Mdfe, to 
cover her shame and desertion, present a spectacle 
so magnanimous and pathetic as "to upbraid us that 
we had never learned nobilities so subhme. Love 
made him great. And Macdonald^ in Donal Grant, 
has shown us a strong, pure soul of moral strength, 
religious appetencies, determined goodness, of ele- 



3i8 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 

vation of character, of strength and wisdom, so that 
in his accustomed walk he might have met Sir 
Percivale or Sir Launfal. Good, and given over to 
God, he was found out by love; and love did with 
him as with us all — love glorified him. In his clean 
life is something sturdy you might lean on, as on 
a staff, and have no fear. So is Enoch Arden made 
hero by love. In love, remembrance, and absence 
of self, he is manhood. We have all wept with 
Arden, finding our faces wet with tears, though not 
knowing we wept. His story never grows trite. 
Each time we read, new light breaks from this 
character as if it were a sun. The sight of him 
when he, like a poor thief, looking in at the window, 

"Because things seen are mightier than things heard, 
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and feared 
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry 
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, 
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth. 

And feeling all along the garden wall, 

Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found. 

Crept to the gate, and open'd it and closed 

As lightly as a sick man's chamber door 

Behind him, and came out upon the waste;" 

and when, 

"Falling prone, he dug 
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd, — " 

the sight of him is as unforgettable as a man's first 
look upon the woman he loves. The poet was right. 



The Genti.eman in I^iterature 319 

Arden was a "strong, heroic soul," and when he 
woke, arose, and cried, "A sail ! a sail !" it was Gk)d's 
nobleman who sighted it. 

"Daniel Deronda" and "John Halifax, Gentle- 
man," may wisely be classed together as attempts 
of competent artists to sketch a gentleman. 
Whether they have failed in the attempt I would 
not make bold to say, but for some reason the 
characters impress me as being scarcely adequate. 
Both faces are open, and lit as by a lamp of truth; 
their lives are sweet as meadows scented with new- 
mown hay ; we become sworn friends to both with- 
out our willing it; they have nothing to take back, 
because words and deeds are faithful to their best 
manhood; they are strong, and women lean on 
them, which, aside from God's confidence, is the 
highest compliment ever paid a man. Deronda is 
a man among aristocrats, Halifax a man among 
plebeians and commercial relations ; but manhood 
is the same quality wherever found; for God has 
made all soils salubrious for such growth. But 
these do not compel, though they do charm us. 
Bayard, in "A Singular Life," may fall in with 
Deronda and Halifax. Tragedy darkens at "the 
far end of the avenue." Bayard is a social reformer 
in attempt, though of the safe and right type, mean- 
ing to change men, that there may be wrought a 
change in institutions. He runs a tilt with Calvinian 
orthodoxy as Methodism does, and loves God and 



320 A Hero and Some Othkr Foi^k 

his fellow-men and a good woman, and finds no 
toil burdensome if he may be of spiritual help and 
healing. "A singular life" he lives ; but singular 
because it is the gospel life, and he merits the name 
the slums gave him, "The Christ-man." He is 
helpful, few more so, and knows power to stir us, 
which in the event is the superb quality in char- 
acter. Captain Moray, in "The Seats of the 
Mighty," and Henry Esmond, in "Henry Esmond," 
are gentlemen of military mold, and we love them 
both because they make for lordly inspiration in the 
soul. Esmond must always keep his hold on men 
as a hero. These two soldiers need no one to re- 
mind us they know how to die; and know that 
other, larger thing — how to live. Esmond, over 
a long stretch of life lying in our sight, walked ever 
as a prince. Any national literature might be glad 
for one such as he. Our imagination takes wings 
when we think of him. Such cleanness, such lack 
of self^ such self-poise and firmness, such singleness 
of love and devotion, such inaptitude for anything 
not noble, such tense heroic purposes, such stalwart 
intention to make himself a man ! He is greatness, 
and his story to be read as a tonic. He recruits 
heroisms in the heart, and rests us when we grow 
weary. Thackeray is reported by Anthony Trol- 
lope to have called his creation, Esmond, "a prig." 
He might better have called iiim a gentleman; for 
such he is, or narrowly lacks of being. Indeed, did 



Thk Gknti,e;man in IvITErature 321 

not Thackeray present another who is ahogether 
gentleman, Esmond would be catalogued as this 
ideal character; for he misses it so little, if at all, 
and is by odds most magnetic of Thackeray's cre- 
ations. And Browning's "Caponsacchi" and 
Hugo's "Valjean" have the true instincts of gentle- 
men, Valjean redeemed himself from worse than 
galley slavery — from debauched manhood to spir- 
itual nobility, bewildering in holy audacity and 
achievement. Were there a pantheon for souls who 
have struggled up from the verge of hell to stand 
in the clear light of heaven, be sulC Valjean would 
be there. Volumes are requisite for his portrait, 
and we have only room for words ! Of Capon- 
sacchi, take the pope's estimate as accurate, "Thou 
sprang'st forth hero." And Pompilia conceived him 
rightly, for he minded her of God. What farther 
need be said ? Is not that panegyric enough for any 
man? Because he was so strong, so fearless, so 
pure, so gifted with great might to love, so keen to 
see Pompilia was pure as a babe's dreams, and the 
light on his forehead falls from the lattices over- 
head — ^the lattices of heaven — we love him. Had 
his figure been fully drawn we should have had a 
gentleman. Nor are we sure he ought not to be so 
catalogued; as he is, we find no fault in him. He 
minds us of the morning star. 

Two characters in literature since Don Quixote 
are life-size gentlemen, and these are Colonel New- 
21 



322 A HsRO AND Some; Other Foi,k 

come and King Arthur, as drawn by Thackeray 
and Tennyson, men of one era and pure souls. In 
these characters is evident dehberation of intent 
to create gentlemen. This article has given no heed 
to biography or history, because these concern 
themselves with truth as observed, and are there- 
fore not imaginative. What we are considering is 
an ideal person, fashioned after the pattern discov- 
ered in good lives, which happily grow more and 
more plentiful as years multiply. Besides, biog- 
raphy can never get at the real man ; for biography 
is a story of doing, while what we need is a story 
of soul. In Boswell's "Jo^^iison" or in Anthony 
Trollope's "Autobiography" there is approach to 
what we care to know; but in the life of Jowett or 
Tennyson, though both are admirable specimens 
of biography, what man among us but closed those 
books with a sense of, not dissatisfaction, but un- 
satisfaction ? What we were really hungry for was 
not there. What Jowett was, which made him a 
part of the life-blood of English thought and Eng- 
lishmen — who found that out? Some things never 
can be told, unless the poets or prose dramatists 
tell them. Poetry and fiction do what history and 
biography fail to do — make us interior to a soul's 
true life. 

Colonel Newcome is all gentleman. He hangs 
a curtain of silence over one' room in his life. 
To his wife, mother of his beloved Clive, he will 



The Gknti^kman in IyITErature 323 

make no reference. Not bad, but frivolous and 
weak and querulous, she was; but Colonel New- 
come never whispers it. What had made many 
misanthropes, made him a better man. No bitter- 
ness tainted his spirit. Pure women put him in a 
mood of worship, as they ought to put us all. He 
could, in conduct, if not in memory, forget hurts 
and wrongs, which Is one mark of a large spirit. 
His was, his biographer afiflrms, "a tender and a 
faithful heart." In him paternity and maternity 
met, which is a conjunction we have not given heed 
to as we ought in thinking on the heart. Mother- 
hood is In the best fatherhood. Not long since I 
met a minister who, on my mentioning a black and 
scrawny village, said, with lovellt face and ringing, 
jubilant voice, "O yes, that is where my boy was 
born!" How true hearts do remember! And Col- 
onel Newcome loved his son with such sweet and 
wide fidelity as makes the heart covet him for father. 
All those days of separation from his son_, he 
thought of him "with such a constant longing af- 
fection." And his joy on seeing his son once more 
is the joy of one getting home to heaven. "To ask 
a blessing on bis boy was as natural to him as to 
wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the 
day is over. His first and last thought was always 
the child." He expects good of people, will say 
no ill of any, can not understand Sir Brian New- 
come's frigid reception, and Is hurt by It as by a 



324 A He;ro and Som:e Othkr Folk 

poisoned arrow shot by the hill tribes in far India; 
he can not tolerate foul thought or speech, burns 
hot with righteous wrath against Captain Costigan 
when he sings a vile song, thundering, "Silence!" 
" 'We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We 
must forgive other people's trespasses if we hope 
forgiveness of our own.' His voice sunk low as 
he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently." 
How unostentatious his bravery, and riches puffed 
him up not a trifle ! How alert to love, how open 
to enjoyment, how young his heart and how pure ! 
What simplicity and what grave courtesy, particu- 
larly to women ! How wide those windows of his 
soul open toward heaven ! How magnanimous, 
how sad his face and heart, how sensitive his nature, 
to any lack of love on dear Clive's part ! Though 
to his own heart he will not admit such lack exists, 
sitting above in his cheerless room, listening to his 
son's merry-making, that son glad to be left free 
of his father's presence, — how bravely he bore pov- 
erty when financial ruin came, not missing wealth 
for himself, but for him he loved, and how he 
grieved for those who had lost through him ! He 
was not faultless. Men are not often that; but his 
anger rose from his heart. His indignation was 
for those he loved. We can see him now, as if he 
lived among us yet. His honest, melancholy face ; 
his loose clothes hanging on his loose limbs ; sitting 
silent, with his sad eyes ; a bankrupt, giving over 



ThK G:eNTl,:eMAN IN lylTEjRATURB 325 

his pension for reimbursing those who had lost by 
him; and his eagerness for wealth for love's sake, 
always thinking of somebody else, — such is this 
gentleman who trusts in God. And thus simple, 
noble, unhumiliated : 

"I chanced to look up from my book toward 
the swarm of blackcoated pensioners, and among 
them — among them — sat Thomas Newcome. His 
dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book ; 
there was no mistaking him. He wore the black 
gown of the pensioners of the Hospital of Grey 
Friars. His Order of the Bath was on his breast. 
He stood among the poor brethren, uttering the 
responses to the psalm. . , . His own wan face 
flushed up when he saw me, and his hand shook 
in mine. 'I have found a home, Arthur,' said he; 
for save this he was homeless. As death came 
toward him his mind wandered, driven as a leaf is 
driven by wandering winds. He headed columns 
in Hindustan ; he called the name of the one woman 
he had loved. In death, as in life, his thought was 
for others, for Clive^ dear, dear Clive. He said, 
'Take care of him when I 'm in India ;* and then, 
with a heartrending voice, he called out, Xeonore, 
Leonore !' She was kneeling by his side now. The 
patient voice sank into faint murmurs ; only a moan 
now and then announced that he was not asleep. 
At the usual hour the chapel bell began to toll, and 
Thomas Newcome's hands, outside the bed, feebly 



326 A Hero and Some; Other F01.K 

beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a pecu- 
liar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted 
up his head a little, and quickly said, 'Adsum !' and 
fell back. It was the word we used at school when 
names were called ; and lo ! he, whose 'heart was as 
that of a little child, had answered to his name, and 
stood in the presence of his Master." 

Small wonder if, in India, they called Thomas 
Newcome "Don Quixote." 

And King Arthur is Alfred Tennyson's dream 
of a gentleman. Arthur is manhood at its prime. 
He was strong, a warrior, a self-made man, since 
the foolish questioned, "Is he Uther's son?" Mys- 
tery and miracle mix with his history, as is accurate, 
seeing no life grows tall without the advent of mir- 
acle. He is rescuer of a realm from anarchy, 
founder of the Round Table — an order of knight- 
hood purposed to include only pure knights — was 
not spectacular; for we read that others were 
greater in tournament than he, but he greater than 
all in battle, from which we see how great occasions 
called out his greatness. He measured up to needs. 
Though often deceived, he was optimist, hoping 
the best from men. He counted life to be a chance 
for service. There was a hidden quality in him, as 
when he, unknown to all, went out from Camelot to 
tilt with Balin and overthrew him. His life was 
pure as the heart of "the lily maid of Astolat," and 
demanded in man a purity as great as that of 



The GentIvKman in I^iterature 327 

woman. His love was mighty, unsuspicious, tender. 
He was himself a king, born to rule, fitted to in- 
spire. No littleness sapped his greatness. He re- 
joiced in others' strength, prowess^ victory. His 
was an eye quick to discover merit in woman or 
man, as in Lynette. His heart v/as tender, and a 
cry for help awoke him from deep sleep. He hated 
foulness as he hated hell. He was like a sky, so 
high, pure, open. Himself makes an era, for his 
age clusters about him as if he were a sun to sway 
a system. Like Cordelia, in "Lear," he is a figure 
in the background ; yet, despite his actual slight 
participancy in the "Idyls of the King," he always 
seems the one person of the poem. What is Lance- 
lot matched with him, or pure Sir Galahad? If 
knighthood misconceived King Arthur then, men 
do not misconceive him now. A great spirit must 
not murmur if misconceived. The world will clus- 
ter to him hereafter, himself being God's hand to 
lift them to his Alp of nobleness. Arthur's life up- 
braids men for their sin. His very purity alienated 
Guinevere. Goodness has tempests in its sky, and 
storms make morning murk as night ; and one true 
knight, King Arthur, goes sick at heart to battle 
with rebels in the West. Lancelot and Guinevere 
are fled ; Modred has raised standard of rebellion ; 
some knights are dead, slain in battle or searching 
for the Holy Grail ; some have left off knighthood, — 
and Kine Arthur is defeated ! Nav, this can not 



328 A H:^RO and Somb Other Folk 

be. He rides into the battle, having forgiven Guin- 
evere "as Eternal God forgives" — the battle where 

"Host to host 
Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn. 
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
Of battle-axes on shatter's helms, and shrieks 
After the Christ, of those who falling down 
lyook'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist." 

And, the battle ended, Arthur moans, "My house 
hath seen my doom ;" but he has not forgotten God, 
nor hath God forgotten him. God is his destination, 
and he trusts him now as in the golden yesterdays : 

"I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within himself make pure!" 

And Arthur found, not sorrow nor defeat, but vic- 
tory ; for 

"Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world, 
Like the last echo born of a great cry. 
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
Around a king returning from his wars." 

And one of earth's gentlemen was welcomed home 
to heaven. 



XII 

The Drama of Job 

THE sun monopolizes the sky. Stars do not 
shine by day, not because they have lost their 
luster, but because the sun owns the heavens, and 
erases them as the tide erases footprints from the 
sands. In similar fashion a main truth monopolizes 
attention to the exclusion of subordinate truths. 
The Bible's main truth is its spiritual significancy, 
containing those ethical teachings which have revo- 
lutionized this world, and which are to be redemp- 
tive in all ages yet to come. The Bible, as God's 
Book for man's reading and redemption, has proven 
so amazing as a moral force, illuminating the mind ; 
purifying the heart ; freeing and firing the imagina- 
tion ; attuning life itself to melody ; peopling history 
with new ideas ; seeding continents with Magna 
Chartas of personal and political liberties ; making 
for religious toleration ; creating a new Ideal of man- 
hood and womanhood ; presenting, in brief bio- 
graphical sketches, perfect pictures of such men as 
the world has seen too few of; and portraying 
Christ, whose face once seen can never be for- 
gotten, but casts all other faces and figures into 
shadow, leaving Him solitary, significant, sub- 

3^9 



330 A Hke-o and Some; Other Foi,k 

lime, — this is the Bible. So men have conceived 
the Scriptures as a magazine of moral might; and 
the conception has not been amiss. This is the 
Bible's chief merit and superior function, and this 
glory has blinded us to lesser glories, which, bad 
they existed in any other literature, would have 
stung men to surprise, adm.iration, and delight. 
"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a pleasure 
simply as an expression of sensuous delight set to 
music. The poem is a bit of careless laughter, ring- 
ing glad and free as if it were a child's, and passing 
suddenly to a child's tears and sobbing. This soli- 
tary virtue has breathed into the Rubaiyat life. The 
Bible is a series of books bound in a single volume, 
because all relate to a single theme : history, biog- 
raphy, letters, proverbial philosophy, pure idyls, 
lofty eloquence, elegiac poetry, ethics, legal codes, 
memorabilia, cominentaries on campaigns more in- 
fluential on the world's destiny than Caesar's, epic 
poetry, lyrics, and a sublime drama. The Bible is 
not a book, but a library ; not a literary effort, but 
a literature. It sums up the literature of the Hebrew 
race, aside from which that race produced nothing 
literary worthy of perpetuation. One lofty theme 
stung them to genius, their mission and literature 
converging in Christ and there ending. The Bible 
as literature marks the book as unique as a literary 
fact as it is as a religious fact; in either, standing 
solitary. That lovers of literature have passed these 



The Drama of Job 331 

surprising literary merits by with comparative in- 
attention is attributable, doubtless, to the over- 
shadowing moral majesty of the volume. The 
larger obscured the lesser glory. But, after all, can 
we feel other than shame in recalling how our col- 
lege curricula contain the masterpieces of Greek, 
Latin, English, and German hterature, and find no 
niche for the Bible, superior to all in moral eleva- 
tion and literary charm and inspiration? "Ruth" 
is easily the superior of "Paul and Virginia" or 
"Vicar of Wakefield." "Lamentations" is as noble 
an elegy as sorrow has set to words ; the Gospels 
are not surpassed by Boswell's "Johnson" in power 
of recreating the subject of the biography; the 
Psalms sing themselves without aid of harp or 
organ; "The Acts" is a history taking rank with 
Thucydides ; and Job is the sublimest drama ever 
penned. If these encomiums are high, they must 
not be deemed extravagant, rather the necessary 
eulogy of truth. 

What are the sublimest poems of universal liter- 
ature ? Let this stand as a tentative reply : ^schy- 
lus's "Prometheus Bound," Dante's "Divine Com- 
edy," Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Milton's "Paradise 
Lost," and Job, author unknown. To rank as a 
subhme production, theme and treatment must both 
be sublime, and the poem must be of dignified 
length. Prometheus has a Titan for subject; has 
magnanimity for occasion ; has suffering, on account 



332 A He;ro and Some Other Folk 

of his philanthropy, as tragic element ; and the bar- 
ren crags of Caucasus as theater; and the style is 
the loftiest of ^schylus, sublimest of Greek drama- 
tists. Perhaps "CEdipus Coloneus" is nearest ap- 
proach among Greek tragedies to the elevation of 
"Prometheus Bound," and Shelley's "Prometheus 
Umbound" has much of the Greek sublimity and 
more than the Greek frigidity. Dante is nearest 
neighbor to ^schylus, though fifteen hundred years 
removed, and the "Divine Comedy" has all ele- 
ments of sublimity. The time is eternal. The havoc 
of sin, the might of Christ, rhe freedom of the hu- 
man spirit, the righteousness of God, the fate of 
souls, are materials out of which sublimer cathedral 
should be built than ever Gothic Christians wrought 
in poetry of stone. "Hamlet" is the sublimity of 
a soul fighting, single-handed, with innumerable 
foes, and dying — slain, but undefeated. "Paradise 
Lost" might easily be mistaken for the deep organ 
music of a stormy ocean, so matchless and sublime 
the melody. In theme, epic ; in treatment, epic ; in 
termination, tragic, — which melts into holy hope 
and radiant promise as a night of storm and fearful 
darkness melts into the light and glory of the dawn 
and sunrise when the sky is fair. I can hear and 
see this blind old Puritan, chanting the drama of a 
lost cause as a David lamenting for his Absalom 
dead. Milton is sublime in history, misfortune, 
range of ideas, warrior strength,and prowess to fight 



Thk Drama of Job 333 

and die undaunted. Not even his darkness makes 
him sob more than a moment. A rebellion in 
heaven, a war in consequence ; the flaming legions 
of the skies led by Christ, God's Son; a conflict, 
whose clangor fills the vaulted skies in heaven with 
reverberating thunders, ending in defeat for evil 
which makes all Waterloos insignificant ; the fall of 
Satanic legions from the thrones which once were 
theirs, when, with dolorous cry, they stumbled into 
hell ; the counterplot of Lucifer ; the voyage across 
the wastes "'of chaos and old night;" the horrid 
birth of Sin; the apocalypse of Sin and Death in 
Eden ; and the Promise, whose pierced hand, held 
out, saved from utter ruin those who, 

"Hand in hand with wandering steps and slow. 
Through Eden took their solitary way." 

Musician, instrument, and oratorio, — all sub- 
lime. Last named, though first written, is the 
drama of Job, in which all things conspire to lift 
the argument into sublimity. Are seas in tempests 
sublime? What are they, matched with Job's 
stormy soul? Are thunders reverberating among 
mountains sublime? What are they when God's 
voice makes interrogatory? But above all, God 
walks into the drama as his right is to walk into 
human life ; and God's appearance, whether at Sinai 
or Calvary, or in the weary watches of some heart's 



334 -^ Hkro and Some; Other Foi^k 

night of pain, makes mountain and hour and heart 
sublime. 

Thomas Carlyle once, reading at prayers in a 
friend's house from the Book of Job, became ob- 
Hvious to surroundings, and read on and on, till 
one by one the listeners arose and slipped out in 
silence, leaving the rapt reader alone, he holding 
on his solitary way until the last strophe fell from 
the reader's lips ; nor can we wonder at him, for 
such must be the disposition of every thoughtful 
peruser of Job. As we will not care to lay Hamlet 
down till Fortinbras is taking Hamlet, with regal 
honors, from the scene, so we cling to Job till we 
see light break through the clouds, and the storm 
vanish, and the thunder cease. 

Job is a prince, old, rich, fortunate, benevolent, 
and good. Life has dealt kindly with him, and 
looking at his face you would not, from his wrinkles, 
guess his years. The great honor him ; the good 
trust him ; the poor, in his bounty find plenty ; no 
blessing has failed him, so that his name is a syn- 
onym of good fortune, — such a man is chief person 
of this drama, written by some unknown genius. 
Singular, is it not, that this voice, from an antiquity 
remoter than literature can duplicate, should be 
anonymous? Not all commodities have the firm's 
name upon them. Some of ,the world's noblest 
thoughts are entailed on the generations, they not 
knowing whence they sprang. He who speaks a 



The; Drama op Job 335 

great word is not always conscious it is great. We 
are often hidden from ourselves. But our joy is, 
some nameless poet has made Job chief actor in the 
drama of a good man's life. "The steps of a good 
man are ordered of the Lord," the Scriptures say, 
and such a man was Job ; and the theme of this 
drama is, how shall a good man behave under cir- 
cumstances ruinously perverse, and what shall be 
his fate? The theme has rare attraction, and ap- 
peals to us as a home message, dear to our heart 
as a fond word left us by a departing friend. 

The drama has prologue, dialogue, and epi- 
logue. The actors are Job's friends. Job's self, 
Satan, and God. 

Temporarily, as an object lesson to children in 
the moral kindergarten, God gave prosperity under 
the Mosaic code as proof of piety. This regime was 
a brief temporality, God not dealing in giving vis- 
ible rewards to goodness, else righteousness would 
become a matter of merchandise, being quotable 
in Dun's. When we reason of righteousness, that 
the good are blest seems a necessary truth ; yet they 
do not appear so. They are afflicted as others, "the 
rain falls on the just and the unjust ;" may, more, 
the wicked even seem favored ; "he is not in trouble 
as other men ;" prosperity smiles on him, like a 
woman on her favored lover; and the spirit cries 
out involuntarily, as if thrust through by an angry 
sword, "How can these things be ?" And this bitter 



336 A Hkro and Some; Othkr Foi,k 

cry, wrung from the suffering good man. Is theme 
for the drama of Job ; and In this stands soHtary as 
it stands subhme. 

A first quahty of greatness in a literary produc- 
tion is, that it deals with some universal truth. 
"How can good men suffer if God be good ?" How 
pressingly important and importunate this ques- 
tion is ! "Does goodness pay ?" is the commercial 
putting of the question. Such being the meaning 
of Job, how the poem thrusts home, and how mod- 
em and personal is it become ! When conceived as 
the drama of a good man's life, every phase of the 
discussion becomes apparently just. Nothing is 
omitted and nothing is out of place. 

Job sits in the sunshine of prosperity. Not a 
cloud drifts across his sky, when, without word of 
warning, a night of storm crushes along his world, 
destroys herds and servants, reduces his habitations 
to ruins, slays his children, leaves himself in poverty, 
a mourner at the funeral of all he loved. Then 
his world begins to wonder at him ; then distrust 
him, as if he were evil; his glory is eclipsed, as it 
would seem, forever; and, as if not content at the 
havoc of the man's hopes and prosperity and joy, 
misfortune follows him with disease ; grievous 
plagues seize him, making days and mights one 
sleepless pain; and his wife, who should have been 
his stay and help, as most women are, became, in- 
stead of a solace and blessing, querulous, crying, 



The Drama of Job 337 

like a virago, shrilly, "Curse God, and die !" Job 
opens with tragedy; Lear, and Julius Csesar, and 
Othello, and Macbeth, and Hamlet, close with trag- 
edy. Job's ruin is swift and immediate. He has 
had no time to prepare him for the shock. He was 
listening for laughter, and he hears a sob. You 
can fairly hear the ruin, crashing like falling towers 
about this Prince of Uz ; and you must hear, if you 
are not stone-deaf, the pant of the bleeding runner, 
who half runs, half falls into his master's presence, 
gasping, "Job, Prince Job, my master — ruin ! ruin ! 
ruin ! Thy — herds — and thy servants — ruin — alas ! 
Thy herds are taken — and thy servants slain — and — 
I — only — I — am — left;" and ere his story is panted 
forth, another comes, weary with the race, and 
gasps^ "Thy flocks — are slain — with fire — from 
heaven — and thy servants — with them — and I — 
alone — ^am — am — " when another breathless runner 
breaks that story off, crying, "Thy sons — and 
daughters — " and Job turns his pale face, and fairly 
shrieks, "My sons and daughters — what? Say on !" 
"Thy sons and daughters were feasting — and — the 
storm swept through — the — sky, and crushed the 
house— and slew — thy daughters — and — ^thy — sons 
— and I, a servant, I only, am escaped — alone — to 
tell thee ;" and Job wept aloud, and his grief pos- 
sesses him, as a storm the sea — and was very pitiful 
— 'and he fell on his face, and worshiped ! The apoc- 
alypse O'f this catastrophe is genius of the most 



338 A He;ro and Some Other Foi^k 

splendid order. Tragedy has come ! But Job rises 
above tragedy, for he worshiped. 

In his "Talks 'on the Study of Literature," Arlo 
Bates, in discussing Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg 
oration, instancing this sentence, "We here highly 
resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain," 
says, "The phrase is one of the most superb in 
American literature, and what makes it so is the 
word 'highly/ the adverb being the last of which 
an ordinary mind would 'have thought in this con- 
nection, and yet, once spoken, it is the inevitable 
and superb word." To all this I agree with eager- 
ness ; but submit that, in this phrase from Job, "I 
only am escaped alone to tell thee," the word 
"alone" is as magical and wonderful; and I think 
the author of this drama may well be claimed as 
poet laureate of that far-off, dateless time. 

And the good man's goodness availed him noth- 
ing? What are we to think of Job now? Either a 
good man is afflicted, and perhaps of God, or Job 
has been a cunning fraud, his life one long hypoc- 
risy, his age a gray deception. Which? Here lies 
the strategic quality in the drama. The three 
friends are firmly persuaded that Job is unrighteous 
and his sin has found him out. His dissimulation, 
thoug'h it has deceived man, has not deceived God. 
Such their pitiless reasoning; and the more blind 
they are, the more they argue, as is usual; for in 
argument, men convince themselves, though they 



The Drama of Job 339 

make no other converts. In Job's calamity, all 
winds blow against him, as with one rowing shore- 
ward on the sea, when tides draw out toward the 
deep and winds blow a gale off shore out to the 
night ; and they blow against Job, because he is not 
what he once was. His life, once comedy, glad or 
wild with laughter according to the day, is now 
tragedy, with white face and bleeding wounds, and 
voice a moan, like autumn winds. Alas ! great 
prince, thy tragedy is come ! Tragedy ; but God 
did not commission it. This drama does not mis- 
represent God, as many a poem and many a sufferer 
do. Satan — this drama says — Satan sent this ruin. 
God has not seared this man's flesh with the white 
heats of lightning, nor brought him into penury 
nor suspicion, nor made his heart widowed. God 
is dispenser of good, not evil ; for while an argument 
is not to be enforced against punitive justice, seeing 
justice is a necessity of goodness, yet we are to 
affirm that the notion of God slaying Job's children 
(or anybody's children, so far as that runs), or blot- 
ting out his prosperity, is obnoxious to reason and 
to heart. This drama perpetrates no such blunder. 
Satan sent these disasters ; for with him is evil pur- 
pose. The very nobility of Job stings him to enmity 
and madness; for iniquity is his delight, and ruin 
his vocation and pleasure. A power without man 
working evil is consonant with history and experi- 
ence, and to suppose this power a person rather 



340 A Hero and Some Other Foi,k 

than an influence is as rational as to suppose God 
not a barren principle, but a Person, fertile in love 
and might and righteousness. In the drama of 
Job, God is not smirched. He is not Hurter, but 
Helper. In "Prometheus Bound," Zeus is tyrant; 
in Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," Zeus is tyrant 
run mad. In Job, God is majesty enthroned; 
thoughtful, interested, loving; permitting, not ad- 
ministering evil ; hearing and heeding a bewildered 
man's cry, and coming to his rescue, like as some 
gracious emancipator comes, to break down prison 
doors and set wronged prisoners free. In Job, God 
is not aspersed, a thing so easy to do in literature 
and so often done. Here is no dubious biography, 
where God is raining disaster instead of mercies. 
To misrepresent God seems to me a high crime and 
misdemeanor — ^nay, the ^ high crime and misde- 
meanor ; because on the righteousness of God hangs 
the righteousness of the moral system embracing 
all souls everywhere, and tO' misconceive or mis- 
interpret God, sins against the highest interests of 
the world, since life never rises higher than the 
divinity it conceives and worships. The permissive 
element in Divine administration is here clearly dis- 
tinguished. Complex the system is, and not sum- 
totally intelligible as yet, though we may, and do, 
get hints of vision, as one catches through the thick 
ranks of forest-trees occasional glimpses of sky-line, 
where room is made by a gash in the ranks of 



'rH]^ Drama of Job 341 

woods, and the open looks in like some one stand- 
ing outside a window with face toward us. 

This drama of goodness gives words and form 
to our perplexity. How can a good life have no 
visible favors? How are we to explain prosperity 
coming to a man besotted with every vice and re- 
pugnant to our souls, while beside him, with heart 
aromatic of good as spice-groves with their odors, 
with hands clean frO'm iniquity as those of a little 
child, with eyes calm and watching for the advent 
of God and an opportunity to help men, — 'and 
calamities bark at his door, like famine-crazed, 
raveno'us wolves at the shepherd's hut; and pes- 
tilence bears his babes from his bosom to the grave ; 
and calumny smirches his reputation ; and his busi- 
ness ventures are shipwrecked in sight of the har- 
bor; and his wife lies on a bed of pain, terrible as 
an inquisitor's rack ; penury frays his garments, and 
steals his home and goods, and snatches even the 
crust from his table, — and God has forgotten good- 
ness? Here is no parable, but a picture our eyes 
have seen as we have stumbled from a garret, 
blinded by our tears as if some wild rain dashed in 
our faces. 

God does not care ; more, God's lightnings sear 
the eyeballs of virtue, tall and fair as angelhood, — 
this is our agonized estimate betimes, and we are • 
troubled lest, unwittingly and unwillingly, we ma- 
lign God. To an explanation of this fiery tangle 



342 ^. Hero and Some Other Foi^k 

of adversity the drama of Job sets itself. How pro- 
digious the task ! 

But the poem breathes perfume in our faces as 
we approach until we think we neighbor with honey- 
suckle blooms. What hinders to catch the fra- 
grance for a moment ere we enter this room of suf- 
fering lying a step beyond? "Job" has beauty. 
"Job" has bewildering beauty. This is no hasty 
word, rather deliberate and sincere. An anthology 
from Job would be ample material for an article. 
All through the poem, thoughts flash into beauty 
as dewdrops on morning flowers flash into ame- 
thyst, and ruby, and diamond, and all manner of 
precious stones. In reading it, imagination is al- 
ways on wing, like humming-birds above the 
flowers. You may find similes that haunt you like 
the sound of falling water, and breathe the breath 
of surest poetry in your face. 

"Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark: 
Let it look for light, but have none; 
Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning." 

"There the wicked cease from troubling. 
And the weary are at rest," — 

a beautiful thought, which Tennyson has put 
bodily into his "Queen of the May," where, as here, 
the words sob Hke a child sobbing itself to sleep 
w'hen its mother is dead and missed. 



The Drama of Job 343 

"There the prisoners are at ease together; 
They hear not the voice of the taskmaster." 

And to prisoners of hope, how healing such 
words are, and full of balm ! But to us who have 
known not the blinding grief of prisoners, the poetry 
of the thought is "rainy sweet." 

"My roarings are poured out like water." 

"Men which are crushed before the moth!" 

"For man is born unto trouble 
As the sparks to fly upward." 

"The counsel of the froward is carried headlong: 
They meet with darkness in the daytime, 
And grope at noonday as in the night." 

"For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field, 
And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee; 
And thou shalt know that thy tent is in peace." 

Can one recall a description of peace more 
searching and ample, not to say fraught with more 
tender suggestion? 

"My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, 
As the channel of brooks that pass away." 

For my part, I know no cry that paints pain 
with surer pathos than a passage now to be quoted. 



344 -^ Hi^RO AND SoMB Oth:er Foi,k 

I see and hear the lonely sufferer, and watch beside 
his bed as if to subdue his pain. 

"Is there not warfare to man upon the earth? 
Are not his days like the days of a hireling? 
As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow, 
And as a hireling that looketh for his wages? 
So am I made to possess months of vanity, 
And wearisome nights are appointed to me. 
When I lie down, I say, 
When shall I arise? But the night is long; 
And I am full of tossings to and fro until the dawn- 
ing of the day. 
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, 
And are spent without hope." 

"I would not live alway: 
Let me alone; for my days are vanity." 

In a passage now to be adduced is sublimity 
passing the sublimity of Milton the sublime : 

"God, which removeth the mountains, and they know 

it not 
When he overturneth them in his anger; 
Which shaketh the earth out of her place, 
And the pillars thereof tremble; 
Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; 
And sealeth up the stars; 
Which alone stretcheth out the heavens. 
And treadeth upon the waves of the sea; 
Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades, 
And the chambers of the South; 
Which doeth great things, past' finding out; 
Yea, marvelous things without number: 
He breaketh me with a tempest." 



The; Drama of Job 345 

Before words like these one may well stand 
dumb, with the finger of silence on the lips. Hear 
Job wail : 

"Now my daj^s are swifter than a post: 
They are passed away as the swift ships. 
As the eagle that swoopeth on the prey, 
My soul is weary of my life." 

"Thou shalt forget thy misery: 
Thou shalt remember it as waters that are passed away." 

"He poureth contempt upon princes. 
And looseth the belt of the strong; 
He discovereth deep things out of darkness. 
And bringeth out to light the shadow of death." 

This "bringeth out to light the shadow of death'^ 
appears to me as bold and transfiguring a figure as 
is to be found in literature. It is majesty itself. 

"They grope in the dark without light, 
And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man." 

"Wilt thou harass a driven leaf, 
And wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?" 

"I am like a garment that is moth-eaten." 

"He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; 
He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." 

"He breaketh me with breach upon breach; 
He runneth upon me like a giant." 



346 A Hkro and Som:^ Othe;r Foi,k 

"Aforetime I was as a tabret." 

"His strength shall be hunger-bitten, 
And calamity shall be ready at his side." 

"My purposes are broken off." 

"His remembrance shall perish from the earth, 
And he shall have no name in the street." 

"Ye break me in pieces with words." 

How vigorously descriptive this is of what many 
a man has endured from hammering speech of 
violent men ! 

"They waited for me as for the rain." 

"He overturneth the mountains by the roots." 

"Out of the north cometh golden splendor." 

"God hath upon him terrible majesty." 

"Deck thyself now with excellency and dignity; 
And array thyself with honor and majesty." 

Has not this putting all the strength and* beauty 
of a Shakespe'arean couplet? Shakespeare uses 
such figures as this often, and in them he is his 
greater self. His is the splendor of imagination 
and clearness of vision of a prince of poets. Time 
liastes. This task is decoying. To cease is a hard- 



Thb Drama of Job 347 

ship ; for "Job" lends itself with such wealth to these 
nohler passages as to urge on our quest. Whole 
chapters are poems, rich as if carven on blocks of 
solid gold. They blaze with splendor. But the 
drama bears on its way hke an invading army, and 
will not wait. 

Disiaster has overtaken a good man with its 
utter demolition; but, as has been shown, the pro- 
logue of the drama settles the paternity of the dis- 
aster. Evils coime, but not necessarily from God. 
In a complex moral system, God has found it good 
to administer by general rather than by special 
laws, and their operation does not work exact jus- 
tice to either wickedness or purity. God's adminis- 
tration being an eternal one, he dares take scope 
to bring rewards to goodness and to evil. God does 
not need to haste. He has eternity, and dares 
therefore be pacific and not perturbed. Haste 
savors of lack in time. God must not haste. That 
he could pour swift retribution on the head of of- 
fending men, we dare not doubt. That he does not 
is patent. Another scene is plainly the purpo'se of 
God, He has a scene behind a scene. If this world 
were an end, there is rank and unforgivable in- 
justice done. Men have not been dealt fairly with, 
and may, with legitimacy, make acrimonious reply ; 
but we are clearly taught that this world is a stage 
for the display of character, not for its reward, and 
the next scene will be for the reward of character. 



348 A Hero and Some; OTH:eR Foi<k 

and not for its display. God will recompense, but 
we are not told God does recompense. Such is the 
lofty argument of the drama, and may be named as 
major theme. 

Prince Job, smitten from his throne of prosper- 
ity and influence into a pit of ignominy, in his 
abasement cries, "Wherefore do the wicked live, 
become old, yea, are mighty in power?" And in 
his conscious integrity he might well shrill a cry 
to his own breaking heart. Job is sure (some things 
calamity reveals) integrity is not awarded according 
to its character and worth, while his three friends 
see in Job's downfall a disclosure of his wickedness. 
They urge him to repent. They think there can be 
no arguing against do'om. God has smitten him 
for his sins, — this they all agree, and say no other 
thing. Poor Job ! His friends consider his hypoc- 
risy proven, and his wife has become foreigner to 
him in his day of disaster; disease climaxes his 
calamities, and he half says, half moans : "When I 
lie down, I say. When shall I arise and the night 
be gone ? and I am full of turnings to and fro until 
the dawning of the day. My days are swifter than 
a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. I 
will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will con- 
fess the bitterness of my soul." Surely his afifliction 
breaks like so'me desperate -sea, and he is as a 
sailor hurled on jagged rocks, bleeding, half- 
drowned, shivering cold, and again the storm-waves 



The; Drama op Job 349 

leap like mad tigers at his throat, and the sailor 
scarce knows well how to beat one stroke more 
against the sea. This is Job. He is bewildered. 
His first cry is as of one whose reason staggers. 
His face, his voice, his words — -all are unnatural. 
To hear, I would not know nor think this was 
Prince Job. Strangely, sadly, terribly changed he 
is when he cries: "Let the day perish wherein I 
was born. Let that day be darkness. Let dark- 
ness and the shadow of death stain it. Let the 
blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, 
let darkness seize upon it. Let it not be joined 
unto the days of the year. Let it not come into 
the number of the months. Lo, let that night be 
solitary; let no joyful voice come therein. Let the 
stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look 
for light, but have none ; neither let it see the 
dawning of the day." "Wherefore is light given 
to him that is in misery ; and life unto the bitter 
in soul, which long for death, but it cometh not; 
and dig for it more than for hid treasures ; which 
rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can 
find the grave? For the thing which I greatly 
feared is come upon me. I was not in safety, 
neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble 
came." Alas, Prince Job, your voice is a-sob with 
tears ; and we had not known it was he ! But did 
grief ever tell its beads with deeper music? Has 
not this bankrupt prince given sorrow words for- 



350 A He;ro and Somk Other F'oi^k 

ever? His pain and grief are unutterable in sad- 
ness, yet is he not alone. Multitudes have taken 
up his lament. There is no pathos deeper than his,, 
"digging for death more than for hid treasures." 
I fear Job's grief unmans him, and he hath gone 
mad with Lear. Pray, think you he is not as pas- 
sionate, gray Lear, mad as the stormy night? It 
seems so, but is not so. He is baffled. He is a 
good man^ but blinded for a moment, as a light- 
ning-flash stupifies the sight. His cry is the cry 
wrung from the white lips of pain through the 
ages. We can not blame him, but only be pitiful 
to him. His disasters are so varied and so ter- 
rible; but we feel sure of him, and if he have 
lost footing and sight, 't will not be for long. 

But there he sits in ashes, fit to make marble 
weep; and his three friends — stately, aged, gray, 
friends of many years — come to comfort him ; for 
which service he has need, sore need. There are 
times when a heart is hungry for tenderness, when 
a word of love would be a gift of God, when a 
touch of some tender hand would be a consolation 
wide as heaven ; and such a word and hand had 
melted Job to tears, and his tears would have done 
him good, as prayer does. Sometimes tears clear 
the throat and heart of sobs that choke. But 
these men were inquisitors rather than comforters ; 
they were philosophers, when they ought to have 
been men. They sat in silence seven days, but. 



The Drama of Job 351 

should have maintained their quiet. These men 
lacked imagination, which is a fatal omission from 
character; for they who came to comfort, became 
polemic, pitiless, belligerent, and their voices sound 
metallic. If a child had crept toward the afflicted 
prince, and had reached out a pitiful hand, and, 
with childish treble, had said, "Poor Job ; poor 
Job !" that word had salved his wounds, and helped 
him through his morass of pain and fear and 
doubt. But instead, his friend Eliphaz hectors his 
pain by saying, in stately fashion, "Thy words 
have upholden him that was failing, and thou hast 
strengthened the feeble knees ; but now it has come 
upon thee, and thou faintest." Shame, Eliphaz ! 
What a bungler ! A child had known better. What 
ails you? Do you not know this man needs ten- 
derness, and not lectures and disquisitions in 
moralities? Can you not see his heart is breaking, 
and his eyes turn to you as if he were watching 
for the coming of some succor infinite? Have you 
no balm with fragrance? But he hears us not, 
or heeds us not, but measures out his periods as 
if he were orator at some state occasion : "Behold, 
happy is the man whom God correcteth : therefore 
despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. 
Lo, this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and 
know thou it for thy good." Pray, is this friend 
mad, or foe, or fool, that he knows no better than 
to pour comtempt on distress? Will not a foe, 



352 A Hero and Some Other Foi^k 

even, have pity on an enemy wounded and bleed- 
ing and prostrate in the dust ? But this man thinks 
he has a mission to teach an overthrown prince 
a lesson, harsh, cold, unrelenting, lacking senti- 
ment. Job's pitiful affliction is enough to lift such 
a man into pity. No, no ; he urges his lesson, like 
some dull schoolmaster who will instruct his pupil 
while he knows him dying. 

Job's broken voice calls, "O that my grief 
were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid 
in the balances together. Is my strength the 
strength of stones, or is my flesh brass? I will 
speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will com- 
plain in the bitterness of my soul. So that my 
soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my 
life. I loathe it; I would not live alway; for my 
days are vanity. To him that is afflicted, pity 
should be shewn from his friend." And to this 
pitiful appeal for considerate judgment, and for a 
word or look of compassion, another friend finds 
answer, with cruelty like the touch of winter on 
an ill-clad child : "If thou wouldst seek unto God 
betimes, and make thy supplication to the Al- 
mighty ; If thou wert pure and upright ; surely now 
he would awake for thee, and make the habitation 
of thy righteousness prosperous." What winter 
wind is bitter and biting as these words? 

Job's friends now are his worst calamities. 
They are thrusting Into his naked and diseased 



The; Drama of Job 353 

flesh a cruel spear, and into his heart a sword. Are 
these men clad in steel that they are so imper- 
vious to pity? And yet, if we pause tO' consider, 
this dramatist has not spoken rashly nor unnat- 
urally; for we can recall that often, often, when 
the window-panes of a life are smoky with the 
breath of suffering, just such criticisms as these 
are offered voluminously. We are hard folks. 
There seems a strain of cruelty in our blood which 
sometimes gloats over suffering as at a carnival. 
Were these men vultures, that wait to watch with 
joy a wounded soldier die? Of what is our 
nature builded, that we are cruel as the unrea- 
soning beasts? These harsh friends are voices 
from our own pitiless hearts, and ought to make 
us afraid. 

There are three friends in number, but there 
is one voice and two echoes, — three men debating 
with one moaning sufferer, and each saying the 
same thing. Had only one of them been present, all 
the three said had been spoken. These men were 
poor in ideas ; for amongst the three is only one 
thought, as if they had one sword among them, 
which betimes each one brandishes. Besides, they 
have a polemic's pride ; they are eager to make 
out a case, and thirst to prove poor Job a sinner. 
One of them (it might as well be any other of 
them) runs on : "The hypocrite's hope s'hall perish : 
whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall 
23 



354 ^ Hkro and Some Other Folk 

be a spider's web. Behold, God will not cast away 
a perfect man ; but the dwelling-place of the wicked 
shall come to naught." This is savage cruelty, 
pouring nitric-acid into sword-gashes. Nothing 
moves your plain man; for he deHghts in making 
people wince. He is not angry, but natural, and 
his naturalness is something worse than the 
choleric man's anger. He is saying: "Ah, Job, 
see now — comfort, comfort? Why the house of 
the wicked shall come to naught." And has not 
Job's house been splintered by the tempest? And 
this friend of many years is saying, "Hypocrite!" 
But this word recalls Job to himself. He rises 
above his pain, scarcely feeling the twinges. His 
thought is drawn away from his physical calamity, 
and that is a goo'd anodyne for torture. His char- 
acter is attacked, and he must run to its succor 
as he would to the rescue of wife or child. Now 
Job ceases sobbing, and becomes attorney for him- 
self. He pleads his cause with full knowledge 
of his own heart. He therefore speaks ex cathedra 
so far. Job is on the defensive — 'not against God, 
but against men. His "tongue is as the pen of 
a ready writer." Job is himself again. His per- 
turbation is passed as a cloud swims across the 
sky. 

Job is the misjudged man, than which few 
things are harder to bear. That enemies miscon- 
strue your motives and misjudge your conduct is 



Ths Drama of Job 355 

to be expected, though even then the spirit is lac- 
erated; but when friends misjudge us, our pain 
seems more than we can bear. This was Job's case. 
His familiar friends become His accusers, rasp- 
ing such words, " How much more abominable 
and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like 
water!" and Job's cry crosses the centuries and 
reaches our ears this day, "Have pity upon me, 
have pity upon me, O ye my friends ; for the hand 
of God hath touched me!" Old Lear's cry, "Stay 
a little, Cordelia," is no more pitiful than this 
strong man reaching for a hand and finding none, 
and pleading for sympathy, and pleading in vain. 
I see him sitting, with his gray beard blowing 
about him like a pufif of fog; I hear him when 
his pitiful voice intones its grief as if it were a 
chant; I see the pleading in his eyes, and it fills 
my breast with heart-break. You who love great 
delineations of passion, what think you of our 
dramatist's vision of Job? You who count King 
Lear among the demigods of creative art, what 
think you of this Lear's older brother? His nature 
is so deep we can not fling plummet to its bottom. 
Lear was weak and wrong; but Job, with all his 
grief upon him, like a cloud upon a mountain's 
crest — ^Job has violated nO' propriety of man or 
God, so far as we have seen, and his cry fills the 
desert on whose verge he sits, and clamors like the 
Avinds on stormy, winter nights. 



If 



356 A H:eRO AND Some Othejr Foi^k 

Job, misjudged, has the mercy of conscious in- 
tegrity. Himself rises to his own vindication, a 
course just and compatible with sincerity and 
modesty. You will misjudge Job if you think him 
egotist. He is rather one who knows himself, 
and feels sure of his purity in motive; has self- 
respect therefore — a hard thing for a soul to have, 
and the possession of which is a benediction. To 
know we meant well, to be able to justify us to 
ourselves, is next in grace to being justified of 
God; for next to Him, self is the most exacting 
master and judge. He feels misjudged, knows 
these men have misinterpreted him, being de- 
ceived by his calamities, and he therefore is thrown 
on the defensive, and becomes his own attorney, 
pleading for his life, "Pray you, my friends, do 
not misjudge me," is his tearful plea, while they 
press their cruel conclusions as a phalanx of spears 
against his naked breast. This conception will clear 
Job of the blame of being self-righteous. I do not 
find that in his utterances ; but do find sturdy 
self-respect, and assertion of pure motive and pure 
action ; for his argument proceeds thus : "I know 
my heart ; I know all my purposes ; I meant right, 
and tried to do right. You think me hypocrite. 
I pray you rectify your judgment, since neither in 
intent nor yet in execution haye I been other than 
I seemed, and who can bring accusations against 
my doings? God breaketh me with a tempest, yet 



Thk Drama op Job 357 

will I cry to him, Do not condemn me : show 
me wherefore thou contendest with me. I call on 
God to vindicate me, who knoweth my life to the 
full. Will God break a leaf, driven to and fro by 
the wind? Though to you, my friends, I seem 
smitten of God, your logic is wrong. I am not 
vile. O that I knew where I might find Him! I 
would order my cause before him, seeing he knows 
the way that I take." Job is himself confounded 
by his calamity, so that he does not see clearly; 
finding no reason why God should afiflict him, he 
being as he is and as he has been, just in pur- 
pose; for Job had yet to learn that lesson he has 
taught us all; namely, that not God, but Satan, 
sent his disaster. He thought God was sowing 
ruin, as the rest thought ; whereas God was letting 
Satan work his evil way, while God was to vindicate 
his servant by an apocalypse of himself. Job, 
though bewildered as to the meaning of his trou- 
bles, asserts his innocency; and as he presents his 
case, his sky clears, and his voice strengthens, 
and his argument rises in its eloquence, sonorous 
as the sea : "Know now that God hath overthrown 
me. He hath fenced my way, that I can not pass. 
He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the 
crown from my head. His troops come together, 
and raise up their way against me, and encamp 
round about my tabernacle. My kinsfolk have 
failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. 



358 A Hero and Some; Other Foi.k 

They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, 
count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their 
sight. I called my servant, and he gave me no 
answer. My breath is strange to my wife, though 
I entreated for my children's sake of mine own 
body. Yea, young children despised me; I arose, 
and they spake against me. All my inward friends 
abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned 
against me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to 
my flesh. Have pity upon me! Why do ye per- 
secute me as God? Have pity upon me!" If in 
literature there is a more passionate passage to 
incarnate in words a life wholly bereft and utterly 
alone, I know not of it. CEdipus Coloneus had 
Antigone, and King Lear had the king's fool and 
loyal Kent, and Prometheus had visitors betimes, 
who brought him balm of sympathy; but Job's 
servants will not obey him, and little children make 
sport of him, and his wife turns away from him, 
and will not hear his sobbing words, nor hear him 
as he calls the names of their children whom he 
loved. Tragic Job ! Not Samson, blind and jeered 
at by the Philistine populace in Dagon's temple, 
is sadder to look upon than Job, Prince of Uz, 
in the solitude of his bereavement. This old 
dramatist, as I take it, had himself known some 
unutterable grief, and out 6i the wealth of his 
melancholy recollections has poured tears like 
rain. He has no master in pathos. 



The; Drama of Job 359 

This lament of Job is one aspect, and but one; 
for as he rises toward God, his calamities seem 
slipping away from him as night's shadows from 
the hills at dawn. God knows his case, and Job, 
conscious of his integrity, looks God in the face, 
and his voice lifts into triumph, passing out of 
complaint and bemoaning into sublime utterances, 
which constitute the sublimest oration man ever 
pronounced, and is contained in those parts of 
the poem reaching from chapter xxvi to chap- 
ter xxxi, inclusive. I have read this oration, 
recalling the occasion which produced it, and noted 
the movement of this aged orator's spirit, and have 
compared it with Marc Antony's funeral oration 
over Caesar, given, by co'mmon consent, the chrefest 
place among orations in the English tongue. For 
that noble utterance my admiration is intense and 
glowing. I answer to it as waters to the touch of 
violent winds ; and in conclusion, from compar- 
ing the orator Marc Antony with the orator Job 
of Uz, I am compelled to confess that I love not 
Antony the less, but Job the more. Marc Antony's 
oration was diplomatic, tragic, masterful, pathetic; 
but Job's oration is spent in the realm of the 
pathetic and sublime. The theme is the appeal to 
God. He has turned from man and toward God. 
His thought swings in circles majestic as the cir- 
cuits of the stars. He fronts himself toward the 
Eternal as if to certify, "To God I make my plea." 






360 A H:^RO AND SoMK Other Foi^k 

His harshness is kinder than the kindness of man. 
Job's orbit includes Hfe. He runs out to God, 
but he runs to God. Himself is point of departure 
on this long journey. This oration is an apology, 
a plea of a great soul, pleading for what is above 
life. The words have pathos, but they lift to sub- 
lime heights. Job sweeps on like a rising tide. 
His false co'mforters sit silent, perplexed, but 
silenced. His argument rises as a wind, which first 
blows lightly as a child's breath on the cheek, 
then lifts and sways the branches of the trees, then 
trumpets like a battle troop, then roars like storm- 
waves beating on the rocks, until we hear naught 
but Job. What begins an apology, ends a psean. 
At first, he spoke as, "By your leave, sirs," Later, 
he seizes the occasion ; masses his lifetime of ex- 
perience and thought and faith and attempted 
service; deploys his argument to show how God's 
wisdom fills the soul's sky, as if all stars had 
coalesced to frame a regal sun ; makes his argument 
certify his conscious integrity in motive and con- 
duct, until he thunders like a tempest: "My desire 
is that the Almighty would answer me. I would 
declare unto him- the number of my steps ; as a 
prince would I go near unto him," — and on a 
sudden his trumpet tones sink into softness, and his 
dilated frame stoops like a broken wall, and he 
murmurs, "The words of Job — are ended." Yet so 
potent his self-defense, that his three comforters 



Thk Drama of Job 361 

sit silent as the hushed night. Their argument 
is broken and their Hps are dry. The words of 
the comforters, hke the words of Job, are ended. 
Ehhu, a youth, has been Hstening. Age has 
had its hour and argument, and age is silenced, 
when, like the rush of a steed whose master is 
smitten from the saddle, this impetuous youth 
speaks. At this point, genius is evidenced by this 
unknown dramatist. A young man speaks, but 
his are a young man's words, hurried, fitful, tinc- 
tured with impertinence, headlong, in statement and 
method; for he is youth, not experienced, not de- 
liberate, and easily influenced by the aged argu- 
ment, and taking strong ground, and is infallible 
in his own eyes ; and in him are visible the swagger 
and audacity of a boy. He makes no contribution 
to the argument. His is a repetitional statement, 
though himself does not know it. He thinks he 
is original. How delightful the audacity of his 
opening: "If thou canst answer me, set thy words 
in order before me. Stand up. Behold, I am 
according to thy wish in God's stead." Clearly 
this is a young man speaking. A novice he, yet 
with all the assurance of a man whose years have 
run more than fourscore. He is bursting with 
speech and impudence, not perceiving that to 
answer where old men have failed is a valorous 
task, to say the least; and to attempt answer to 
Job, who has unhorsed every opponent in the lists. 



362 A Hejro and Soms Othkr F01.K 

is a strong man's work ; but beyond this, Elihu 
undertakes to answer for God. He will be in 
God's stead. See in this a young man's lack of 
reverence. What the old men hesitated to attempt, 
knowing the work lay beyond their united powers, 
this youth flings into as he would into a swelling 
stream, swollen by sudden rains among the up- 
lands. His ears have been keen. Nothing has 
escaped him. All the words of everybody he has 
in mind, his memory being perfect, since he is 
young and no faculty impaired, and as the debate 
has proceeded and he has seen old men overborne 
by the old man Job, his impetuous youth has seen 
how he could answer. This is natural, as any one 
conversant with himself (not to go further in in- 
vestigation) must know. We itch to reply, think- 
ing we see the vulnerable joint in the harness. 
Job has spoken last, and silenced his adversaries, 
and Elihu recalls practically but one thought df 
Job's reply; namely, that he was not unrighteous 
in intent, and gets, as most of us do, but a part 
of the afflicted man's meaning, and concludes that 
Job is glaringly self-righteous, missing the true 
flavor of Job's answer; for what Job was, was 
self-respecting. And so Elihu gives Job a piece of 
his mind ; takes up the thread of argument where 
the old men had broken it, and drives on, with many 
words and few ideas, to prove Job is wrong and 
bad, and that God has simply meted out justice, 



The; Drama of Job 363 

no more. Elihu's words fairly trample on each 
other's heels, and though only giving a weakened 
statement of what had been said before, like a 
strong voice weakened by age, he thinks his is 
a sledgehammer argument, illuminative, convinc- 
ing, unanswerable ; yet because he thinks he speaks 
in God's behalf and in God's stead, he rises into 
eloquence withal, though his words are pitiless ; 
for himself knows not suffering, nor can he compass 
Job's calamity, Elihu mistakes the sight of his 
eyes for the truths of God, a blunder of not in- 
frequent recurrence. He is not all wrong, nor is 
he all wrong in his desire to help to the truth, but 
is as a lad trying to lift a mountain, which, planted 
by God, requires God to uproot it. 

So the drama sweeps on. Jobs sits silent, but 
not silenced. He makes no reply to Elihu's in- 
vective. Here is a dignified silence more impress- 
ive than any speech. He has been shot at by 
all the volleys of the earth and sky ; and, wounded 
in every part, he retains his faith in God; nay, 
his faith is burning brightly, like a newly-trimmed 
lamp: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. 
I am misconceived by man, but not by God;" and 
his face has a strange light, as if he had been 
with Moses on the mount ; and when, in a whirl- 
wind's sweep, and above it, God's voice is heard; 
and it is Job God answers, as if tO' say, "Yours 
is the argument." God has no controversy with 



364 A He;ro and Somk Othrr F01.K 

Elihu, nor yet with the aged counselors. Them 
he ignores; them, by and by, he rebukes. Job, 
and not they, had been right. God is come as 
vindicator. If his voice thunders Hke tempestuous 
skies, there is to appear an unspeakable tenderness 
in it at the last. He is not come to ride Job 
down, like a charge of Bedouin cavalry. He is 
come to clear his sky. He is come to give 
him vision and to show him wisdom, of which, 
though Job has spoken, he has had none too 
much. In the drama, God speaks in discussion 
to two persons. In conversational tones, in the 
prologue to the drama, he talks with Satan when 
he leads Job to trial. Job's calamities, instead 
of being a proof of his turpitude, are proof of the 
confidence God reposes in him. 

What a revelation in character that is! If for 
a time God had, as object-lesson to the Jew and 
through him to the world, granted visible rewards 
and visible punishments, that was not the per- 
manent scheme. God's administration is hid from 
vulgar eyes truly, but also from the eyes "of the 
wise and prudent." Man's wisdom may not vaunt 
itself. God's moral system is no well-lit room in 
which all furnishings are visible ; rather a twilight 
gloom, where men and women grope. We know 
enough. Virtue is made very evident, and vice 
very despicable, and God 'very apparent — and 
these be the sufficient data for the monograph 



Thb Drama op Job 365 

of life. "All things work together for good to 
them that love God," is the far-away response to 
Job's troubled cry. God converses with Satan 
long enough to deny the allegation that Job serves 
God as a matter of dollars and cents, that it is 
convenient — so runs the devil's sneer — convenient 
for Job to be good ; for he finds it profitable. But 
if God will lower his rate of profit in goodness, 
and if God will shipwreck all Job's prosperity, and 
sting him with the serpent-touch 'of dire disease, 
then will Job become as others. Profit in good- 
ness gone, his goodness will "fade as doth a leaf." 
This is evil's pessimistic philosophy, and Job, on 
whom calamitous circumstances pile as Dagon's 
temple on Samson's head; Job, trusting where he 
can not see, and making his appeal to God, whose 
ways are hid, — is the lie given to Satan's prophe- 
cies, and the vindication of God's confidence in 
Job. Job has been as one sold into servitude for 
a month. Satan hath been a hard master, has thrust 
him exceeding sore, has given no intermission of 
peril or anguish, has crowded sorrow on sorrow, 
has snatched away every flower from the field of 
this good man's life, and watches, leering, to hear 
him say, "I will curse God and die;" but when, 
after arguments compounded of pain and tears and 
hope. Job returns to his silence, saying, "The words 
of Job are ended," Satan has witnessed the tri- 
:umph of a good man, and disproof of his own 



366 A He;ro and Some Other Foi.k 

sorry accusations, and the vindication of God's 
estimate; and, as is fitting, he stays not to ac- 
knowledge defeat, but slips away as the whirlwind 
chariot of Jehovah dashes into sight. Satan, not 
Job, has been defeated. 

And in the long years of a prosperous life, no 
confidence has been reposed in Job so worthy as 
this reposed in him of God, to put to silence the 
slanders of wickedness that goodness was a species 
of selfishness ; so that what Job did not under- 
stand, and what his friends interpreted as the cer- 
tain disfavor of God, was sign of the trust God 
reposed in him. Satan had done his worst on a 
good man, and had failed! What an apocalypse 
this was ! The second person with whom God 
holds conversation is Job. Satan he talked with 
in conversational tones, with no state nor elo- 
quence. Job he honors, coming in regal splendor, 
by thundering with his voice, by treating Job as 
if he were ambassador for some potentate whom 
God held in high regard. God's argument is the cli- 
max of sublimity reached in literature ; is mountain 
summit of sublime thought and utterance. What 
effect is wanting to make this scene bewildering 
in sublimity? One? No. The auditor is Job, 
sitting in the ruin of home and love, and friend- 
ships and consequence among men, and good re- 
pute, and if, bending low, you will hear him, you 
shall know he is sobbing for children that are not. 



The; Drama of Job 367 

One lonely, distraught, mystified, sorely-be- 
leagured, and still surely-trusting man, — this is 
the audience. The scene is a tawny desert, once 
sown to oases of flowers, and billowing grain, and 
stately palm-tree, and olive-groves, now harvest- 
less, flowerless, palmless. Once a stately palace 
rose beside a fountain here, and from its open 
doors ran genial hospitality, to greet the coming 
guest and the wayfayer overtaken by the night 
and weariness ; and from the windows singing and 
laughter rose, like a chorus of youthful voices; 
and now — where these things were are only ruins, 
havoc, disaster; and Job sits amidst the desolation 
that once was home as if he were crowned king 
of the realm of Calamity; and the desert, tawny 
as a tiger's skin, stretches away to the horizon, 
barren as the sea, than which is nothing more soli- 
tary or pregnant with melancholy and thought. 

The sky is ample and open. Not a cloud flecks 
it with its foam. From desert line to the blue 
zenith is only bewildering blue ; when, black as 
a stormy midnight, driving as if lightnings were 
its chariot steeds, comes the whirlwind whereon 
the Almighty rides, and halts ; and God pitches 
his midnight pavilion in front of silent Job on the 
silent desert, and from this tent, whose curtains 
are not drawn, there trumpets a voice. God is 
come ! And God speaks ! "The Ivord answered 
Job out of the whirlwind." Eloquence like this 



368 A Hb;ro and Som:^ Other Foi,k 

on forum like this, literature knows nothing of. 
Sublimity is come to its noon. 

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundation 
of the earth?" is the astounding introductory. 
No exordium is here. Into the thick of argument, 
God leaps as a soldier might leap into the midst 
of furious battle. "Whereupon are the foundations 
thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner-stones 
thereof; when the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who 
shut up the sea with doors, when I made the cloud 
the garment thereof, and set bars and doors, and 
said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and 
here shall thy proud waves be stayed ? Hast thou 
commanded the morning since thy days ; and 
caused the dayspring to know his place; that i't 
might take hold of the ends of the earth that the 
wicked might be shaken out of it? It is changed 
as clay under the seal ; and all things stand forth as 
a garment ; and from the wicked their light is with- 
holden, and the high arm shall be broken. Hast 
thou entered into the springs of the sea? Have the 
gates of death been opened unto thee? Where is 
the way where light dwelleth? And as for dark- 
ness, where is the place thereof? Hast thou en- 
tered into the treasures of the snow? By what 
way is the light parted, or the east wind scattered 
upon the earth? Who hath cleft a channel for 
the waterflood, or a way for the lightning of the 



Th:B Drama of Job 369 

thunder? Hath the rain a father? or who hath 
begotten the drops of dew? Canst thou bind the 
cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of 
Orion? Canst thou lead forth the signs of the 
zodiac in their seasons? or canst thou guide 
Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordi- 
nances of the heavens? Canst thou lift up thy 
voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may- 
cover thee? Canst thou send forth lightnings^ 
that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we 
are? Who provideth for the raven his food, when 
his young ones cry unto God, and wander for lack 
of meat? But seeing thou canst not understand 
these things, and they are too high for thee, canst 
thou understand some little things, and answer 
some trivial questions I will put to thee ? Knowest 
thou the secret of the wild goat or the wild ass 
on the desert? or the wild ox? or the ostrich that 
scorneth the horse and his rider? or the horse, 
hast thou given him strength ? for he paweth in the 
valley, and leaps as a locust, and rejoiceth in his 
strength, and goeth out to meet the armed men ; 
he mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed, neither 
turneth his back from the sword ; he smelleth the 
battle afar off. Doth the hawk soar by thy wis- 
dom, and stretch her wings toward the south? 
Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and 
make her nest on high? And behemoth, what of 
him ? His limbs are like bars of iron ; he is con- 
24 



370 A H:ero and Some; Other Foi<k 

fident, though Jordan swell even to his mouth. 
Or leviathan, what canst thou do with him, and 
what knowest thou of him? In his neck abideth 
strength; his breath kindleth coals; his heart is as 
firm as a stone ; he counteth iron as straw, and 
brass as rotten wood; and when he raiseth him- 
self up, the mighty are afraid. Hast thou an arm 
like God? and canst thou thunder with a voice like 
him? Deck thyself now with excellency and dig- 
nity, and array thyself with honor and majesty. 
Pour forth the overflowings of thy anger ; and look 
upon every one that is proud, and abase him. Look 
on every one that is proud, and bring him low; 
and tread down the wicked where they stand, and 
hide them in the dust together." 

And Job called, so thait his words sounded 
through the whirlwind's curtains: "I know that 
Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of 
Thine can be restrained. Who is this that hideth 
counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I ut- 
tered that which I understood not; things too 
wonderful for me, which I knew not. Wherefore 
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." 
And Job has learned this salutary lesson, that no 
man can comprehend all the ways life leads, nor 
need to. God is above the ways of life: 

"He leads us on by paths we do not know; 
Upward he leads us, though our steps be slow; 



Thb Drama of Job 371 

Though oft we faint and falter by the way; 
Though clouds and darkness oft obscure the day, 
And still He leads us on." 

Job has learned to rest his case with God. 

"My God knows best! Through all my days 

This is my comfort and my rest; 
My trust, my peace, my solemn praise, — 
That God knows all, and God knows best 

My God knows best! That is my chart — 
That thought to me is always blest: 

It hallows and it soothes my heart; 
For all is well, and God knows best. 

My God knows best! Then tears may fall: 

In his great heart I find my rest; 
For he, my God, is over all; 

And he is love, and he knows best." 

God's argument is burned into Job's mind. 
How can man, who understands not the visible 
things of daily recurrence, think to penetrate the 
meaning of the moral universe, whose ways are 
hidden, like the caverns of the seas? Not Job, 
nor any one of those who have spoken, has 
found the clew to this maze. But Job is im- 
pregnable now in his trust in God, as if he were 
in a fortress whose approaches were guarded by 
the angels of heaven. 

And God spake yet once more ; and now a word 
of rebuke — not argument — to the old men, who 



372 A Hi^RO AND SoMK Oth^r F01.E; 

trembled near the tent of God's whirlwind: "My 
wrath is kindled against you: for ye have not 
spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant 
Job hath. My servant Job shall pray for you ; for 
him I will accept." And Job, what ails Job now? 
He thought he was rebuked of God in the Divine 
argument, and now he knows himself, at a word, 
vindicated, exalted ; honor burnished, and not tar- 
nished; himself, not accused of God, but beloved 
of him, and praised by him, — and Job is weeping 
like a little child ; and lifting up his face, while the 
tears rain down his cheeks, his eyes and his heart 
and his face are like springtime in laughter, and 
his voice is as the singing of a psalm ! For "the 
Lord turned the captivity of Job." 

How great an advent ! Beauty this drama has ; 
but beauty belongs to the rivulet and the twi- 
lights; but sublimity to the Niagaras, and the^ 
oceans, and the human heart, and the words of 
God. This drama is sublimity's self. Theme, 
actors, movement, goal, pertinency to the deep- 
est needs of soul and experience, and chiefly, God 
as protagonist, say that sublimity belongs to this 
drama as naturally as to the prodigious mountains 
or to the desert at night. "Surely, God is in this 
place, and we knew it not." 

And Job ends as comedy, though it began as 
tragedy. Hamlet ends in tragedy. He has lost 
faith, and his arm is palsied. We hear the musi- 



Thk Drama of Job 373 

cians of Fortinbras playing a funeral dirge. 
Hamlet was tragedy because God was not there. 
When God is near, no tragedy is possible'. God 
is out of Hamlet. Job had closed as Job began, 
with tragedy dire and utter, but that here a man 
refused to let go of God. Job believed. He did 
not understand. He was sore pressed. His tears 
and his anguish blinded him for an hour; but 
where he could not see, he groped, and caught 

"God's right hand in the darkness, 
And was lifted up and strengthened." 

And God comes ! and Job ends not in funeral 
dirge, as it began, but in laughter and the smiting 
of silver cymbals. A good man's life has tragedy, 
but ends not so. If he die, God is at his bedside, 
holding his hand; and when he dies, he has good 
hope and solemn joy ; for he shall live again. 



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